Much has been said about what is missing from the new 120-page Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) guide, “A Resource Guide to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,” published in November 2012 by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) (for a recent critique, see S. Rubenfeld, “Chamber Picks Apart Guidance in Letter, Demands Statutory FCPA Reform,” Wall St. Journal, Feb. 19, 2013).
The details of the guide’s hypotheticals and examples will be scrutinized for years to come in order to shed light on proposed or past business activities. Here, based on our experience representing companies and individuals in FCPA matters before the DOJ and SEC, we describe eight areas in which the guide taught us something new or confirmed what we thought we knew about the FCPA.