The Supreme Court's recent decision in
Snyder v. United States, No. 23-138 (U.S. June 26, 2024),
narrowed the federal program bribery statute, 18 U.S.C. § 666,
to prohibit only bribery.
This result is based substantially on arguments that had been
asserted by Winston & Strawn LLP in the First and Fifth
Circuits. Every Court of Appeals to have considered the issue had
found that Section 666 prohibited gratuities, as well as bribes,
until Winston partners Abbe David Lowell and Christopher Man
persuaded the First Circuit to conclude the statute did not reach
gratuities in United States v. Fernandez, 722 F. 3d 1
(1st Cir. 2013). More recently, they persuaded the Fifth Circuit to
do the same in United States v. Hamilton, 46 F. 4th
389 (5th Cir. 2022). The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review
a Section 666 conviction on the gratuity theory that had been
upheld by the Seventh Circuit, and then adopted the minority
position of the First and Fifth Circuits. Lowell and
