The enforcement actions in 2019, like the year before it,
largely failed to generate any new or surprising issues related to
the FCPA's statutory regime. Instead, we mostly observed a
continuation of past issues, with the DOJ and SEC buckling
themselves as they pushed the boundaries of the FCPA's
definitions and scopes.
JURISDICTION
The application of the FCPA's territorial jurisdiction
provision to foreign persons and the contours of how to define
"while in the United States" under § 78dd-3 have
been areas in which the DOJ and SEC have been creatively pushing
the boundaries. As we noted in the July 2019 Trends &
Patterns, in the Fresenius matter, the DOJ and SEC based their
jurisdictional hook solely on the use of internet-based email
accounts hosted by service providers in the United States. Neither
agency alleges that any of the actors involved in the misconduct
had any presence in the United States while they acted in
furtherance of the corrupt scheme, nor any
