The U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) criminal enforcement of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in 2013 led to significant headlines and significant resolutions, including hundreds of millions of dollars in recoveries as well as guilty pleas by companies and individuals alike following DOJ investigations.
One of the drivers of FCPA settlements and pleas continues to be the prospect of long-tail criminal liability under the general conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. §371, which the DOJ has employed to prosecute conduct stretching many years into the past, taking advantage of the “last overt act” rule for computing the limitations periods in conspiracy cases. Put simply, the rule means that the limitations period for a conspiracy begins to run with the last affirmative act in furtherance of the scheme. Most recently, a subsidiary of Archer Daniels Midland pleaded guilty to FCPA-related conspiracy charges,1 while within the past decade such charges have been lodged against subsidiaries of Siemens,2 Daimler,3 and numerous other firms and individuals, including Frederic Bourke,4 who is now serving a federal prison sentence of one year and a day as a result of his FCPA conspiracy conviction.
