2016 FCPA Enforcement Actions and Highlights

Overall, this was a more active year for FCPA enforcement actions when compared to 2015. This year, Department of Justice ("DOJ") took a total of 10 enforcement actions and Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") took a total of 25 enforcement actions. Like last year, SEC is more active than DOJ, in terms of numbers of the enforcement actions. Of the 10 enforcement actions taken by DOJ, only 1 of them was related to a real person. Of the 25 SEC enforcement actions 4 of them were related real persons.

In terms of sectoral concentration of FCPA enforcement actions, one can see that mostly the technology sector were targeted followed by the pharmaceutical sector. In terms of where the foreign bribery took place, China seems dominant. In fact, all of the 4 pharmaceutical companies were charged with foreign bribery in China.