Some Comments on the 2020 FCPA Resource Guide

摘要

On July 3, 2020 the U.S. Department of Justice ("DOJ") and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") jointly released the publication headed "A Resource Guide to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, The Second Edition." In our view, this second edition of the Resource Guide is essential reading for any attorney whose clients are subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA")The point persons for the DOJ and the SEC in creating andpublishing the second edition of the Resource Guide, Brian A.Benczkowski, then Assistant Attorney General and head of theDOJ's Criminal Division for the DOJ and Stephanie Avakian andSteven Peikin, then Co-Directors of the Division of Enforcementfor the SEC, in their Foreword to the Resource Guide, set forth avery cogent summary of its contents and its purpose, as follows:"We are pleased to announce the publication of the Second Editionof A Resource Guide to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. TheGuide was originally published by the Department of Justice (DOJ)and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in November2012 to provide companies, practitioners, and the public withdetailed information about the statutory requirements of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) while also providing insight into the DOJ and SEC enforcement practices through hypotheticals, examples of enforcement actions and anonymized declinations, and summaries of applicable case law and DOJ releases. Then as now, the Guide represents one of the most thorough compilations of information about the criminal statute and remains relevant to this day.