A federal indictment unsealed November 20th in Brooklyn charges Indian energy magnates Gautam S. Adani, Sagar R. Adani, and Vneet S. Jaain, along with several other individuals, with orchestrating a multi-billion-dollar bribery and fraud scheme. The case alleges a conspiracy to pay over $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to secure solar energy contracts, coupled with fraudulent efforts to obtain capital from U.S. and international investors.

An indictment was unsealed charging the former CEO of a bitcoin mining form with bribery violations and his company entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department. The November 18 indictment charges Zhengming Pan, former CEO of 500.com (now BIT Mining Ltd.), a Chinese national, with multiple violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).  Simultaneously, BIT Mining Ltd. has agreed to resolve investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) concerning related FCPA violations, involving bribery of Japanese officials. …

Compliance-challenged defense contracting giant RTX has agreed to pay nearly $1 billion to settle charges of government contract fraud, foreign bribery, and export control violations. The settlement comes on the heels of a $200 million settlement in August with the State Department [12717] for a raft of  export control violations.  

After a particularly slow second quarter, FCPA enforcement activity picked up between July and September of 2024, with the DOJ initiating one new FCPA-related enforcement action, unsealing two previously filed actions, and issuing one declination letter, according to a tally from Stanford University's FCPA Clearinghouse. "Enforcement activity through Q3 of this year remained well below even the last three years of lower than average enforcement" the report notes

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Deere & Company, which does business as John Deere, agreed to pay nearly $10 million to resolve SEC charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) arising out of bribes paid by its wholly owned subsidiary, Wirtgen Thailand. Thailand employees bribed Thai government officials with the Royal Thai Air Force, the Department of Highways, and the Department of Rural Roads to win multiple government contracts and also bribed employees of a private company to win sales to that company.

A Texas commodity trader pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and engaging in interstate and foreign commerce to promote and to distribute the proceeds of commercial bribery for paying bribes to officials at the Mexican state-owned oil company, PEMEX.  The plea follows Javier Aguilar's conviction earlier this year in a related case for paying bribess to Ecuadorian officials and laundering the funds for both the Ecuadoran and Mexican schemes.

A federal jury in Brooklyn, New York, convicted the former Finance Minister of Mozambique for his role in a $2 billion fraud, bribery, and money laundering scheme that victimized investors in the United States and elsewhere. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Manuel Chang, 68, of Mozambique, received $7 million in bribes in exchange for signing guarantees on behalf of the Republic of Mozambique to secure funding for three loans for maritime projects.

Three executives of the Smartmatic voting machine company and the former Chairman of the Phillipine Commission on Elections were indicted Thursday for their roles in an bribery and money laundering scheme to retain and obtain business related to the 2016 Philippine elections.

Illinois aviations services provider AAR appears close to resolving bribery allegations involving the sale of used Airbus A330s at inflated prices to the Nepal Airlines, the flag carrier of Nepal.  A July 19 plea deal reached by Deepak Sharma, former President of International Supply Chain for AAR was usealed in the District of Columbia.  Sentancing is forthcoming. On April 4, Nepal’s anti-graft body completed its five-year probe into the $209.6-million Airbus deal, the largest ever in Nepal’s aviation history. The body concluded that Nepal Airlines' procurement of two wide-body jets caused the government a loss of $13.38 million. The case has implicated 32 individuals.

Neither the SEC nor the DOJ filed a new FCPA Enforcement Action in the second quarter of 2024, which is relatively rare, according to a report from Stanford University's FCPA Clearinghouse. The last time a quarter passed without a single new enforcement action was in 2013, and before that, in 2003. Enforcement activity in the first six months of the year was the lowest recorded in almost two decades.

Departing Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Kenneth Polite told Reuters the department’s enforcement pipeline has several more “global resolutions,” or large corporate settlements pending in coming months. Mr. Polite, who will be joining Sidley Austin in October after overseeing corporate resolutions such as Glencore, ABB, Danske, and Stericycle attributed the backlog to COVID related- delays.  Polite said to expect "much larger schemes and activities."

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has settled violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) with Frank's International, a global oil services company. Between January 2008 and October 2014, Frank's paid commissions to a sales agent in Angola, knowing there was a high probability the agent would use the funds to bribe Angolan government officials on behalf of the company.

A Pennsylvania coal miner formerly controlled by Texas buyout firm Quintana Capital has been given a pass on prosecution for FCPA violations involving $143 million in coal sales to Egypt in exchange for a $1.2 million payment to the Department of Justice Fraud Division.

Swedish Telecoms giant and serial FCPA violator LM Ericsson signed a new deal with the Justice Department acknowleging further breaches of the deferred prosecution agreement it entered into for corruption in Djibouti, China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Kuwait.    

A Connecticut man and a foreign national have been charged with conspiracy, multiple counts of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), and money laundering in connection with an alleged …