The US executive order halts new and existing foreign bribery investigations — but enforcement risk in the UK and Europe remains.

By Pamela Reddy, Nathan Seltzer, Clare Nida, Annie Birch, and Matthew Unsworth

On 10 February 2025, President Trump issued an executive order titled “Pausing Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Enforcement to Further American Economic and National Security” (the Order). Among other things, the Order pauses new prosecutions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) at the Department of Justice (DOJ) for 180 days and orders a review of existing FCPA cases. (See the Order and the fact sheet.)

The Order, which calls for halting “overexpansive and unpredictable FCPA enforcement” that “wastes limited prosecutorial resources” and “actively harms American economic competitiveness”, marks a significant shift in DOJ’s priorities and presidential priorities. For example, in 2021, the Biden administration launched the US Strategy on Countering Corruption, a broad governmental, non-governmental, and private sector initiative to combat corruption worldwide. The Order pauses new FCPA criminal cases, directs review of existing cases, and leaves open several questions, including implications for specific business sectors and civil enforcement. (For more detailed information on the Order, see this blog post.)

DOJ’s retreat presents the question whether prosecuting bodies in the UK and Europe, which have strived to be increasingly active and ambitious, will aim to fill any gap left by their US counterparts.

Implications and Open Questions

The FCPA is an expansive and (for the past 20 years) robustly enforced US anti-corruption law that prohibits bribery of foreign government officials to secure business. It has a broad territorial scope, applying to all US persons or companies, issuers of stock on US exchanges, as well as anyone physically within the US.

Pursuant to the Order, for a period of 180 days (which could be extended by another 180 days) and “unless the Attorney General determines that an individual exception should be made”, no new FCPA investigations will be opened and all existing investigations will be reviewed by the Attorney General to ensure they are within their “proper bounds”. The Attorney General has also been directed to review existing DOJ policies on FCPA enforcement¹ and update them as necessary to “prioritize American interests, American economic competitiveness with respect to other nations, and the efficient use of Federal law enforcement resources”.

Whether the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which is an independent agency and does not report to the president, will similarly scale back enforcement against issuers remains to be seen. Moreover, the statute of limitations under the FCPA will outlast the Trump administration, so any bribery or corrupt activity could still be prosecuted under the next administration, whose enforcement priorities may differ.

UK and European Enforcement Risk

US companies may still find themselves in the crosshairs of UK and European prosecuting bodies, such as the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the French Parquet National Financier (PNF). The Bribery Act 2010 is another expansive piece of anti-corruption legislation — and any US organisation carrying on business, or part of a business, in the UK is potentially in scope of the government and commercial bribery offences.

In recent years, UK and European prosecutors have taken a back seat to DOJ in bribery cases in which all three prosecutors have jurisdiction. SFO Director Nick Ephgrave has been vocal about his desire to take a “bolder, more pragmatic, more proactive” approach to investigating and prosecuting serious financial crime, a sentiment echoed by the UK’s Director of Public Prosecutions, Stephen Parkinson.

With Ephgrave at the helm, the SFO has launched six new investigations, charged 15 suspects, obtained its first-ever unexplained wealth order, and revived the use of dawn raids (a tactic that had become scarce in recent years). Furthermore, although Ephgrave originally signalled an intention to focus on domestic fraud, he has demonstrated an appetite for taking on large, international corruption cases, including in partnership with the PNF.

The PNF also continues to vigorously pursue allegations of corruption independently — it has concluded over 20 bribery-related CJIPs (Conventions Judiciaires d’Intérêt Public, the equivalent of a UK deferred prosecution agreement) since 2016. In the latter half of 2024, the PNF concluded CJIPs with manufacturing and mining companies, both in relation to bribes paid to foreign public officials.

While the SFO and PNF have ambitions to address foreign bribery, it remains to be seen whether either enforcer has the resources, infrastructure, or jurisdiction to make an impact in the face of a likely DOJ retreat.

This post was prepared with the assistance of Charlotte Ma in the London office of Latham & Watkins.

1. See, for example, DOJ’s Resource Guide to the FCPA: https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-fraud/file/1292051/dl?inline. ↩︎