FCPA Enforcement After the 2025 Pause: Bribe Funds Still Leave a Paper Trail

The FCPA is still enforced after the 2025 pause, with corporate bribery cases continuing into 2026. The Justice Department changed its priorities, and later cases describe the records an insider might recognize: inflated contracts, invented services, inspection payments and coded cash ledgers. If you know what a consultant actually did, why a shipment cleared or where the money behind a government contract went, those details still matter.

Is the FCPA Still Enforced?

Yes. The February 2025 pause changed enforcement policy without repealing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The Justice Department issued new enforcement guidelines that June, and Scoular entered a corporate foreign-bribery agreement the following year.

The February 10, 2025 executive order directed the attorney general to review enforcement guidelines for 180 days. During that review, the department was to stop starting new FCPA investigations and enforcement actions unless the attorney general approved an individual exception. Existing investigations and actions were to be reviewed, rather than automatically dismissed.

The order framed earlier enforcement as a burden on American businesses competing abroad. Its stated concerns included economic competitiveness, national security and access to strategic infrastructure. That framing matters to someone watching a rival buy government business: the same commercial competition used to justify the pause became a reason to pursue certain bribery cases under the June policy. The June 9, 2025 guidelines took effect that day. They directed prosecutors toward specified priorities and told them to focus on misconduct by identifiable individuals.

The June Guidelines Put the Business Advantage in View

The June guidance identifies four priorities, and expressly leaves room for other considerations. For an insider, each connects an official decision to the company, transaction or payment behind it:

• Cartels and transnational criminal organizations. Prosecutors are to consider connections to their criminal operations, money launderers or shell companies, and officials who have received their bribes. The connection can run through the people supplying or moving the cash.
• Fair opportunities for American companies. The guidance emphasizes identifiable American businesses or individuals harmed by bribery, including businesses deprived of a fair chance to compete. A lost contract and the official decision behind it can matter together.
• National security. Defense, intelligence, critical minerals, ports and other key infrastructure receive particular attention. The policy connects bribery in these areas to control over assets and strategic business advantages.
• Serious misconduct. Substantial bribes, deliberate concealment, fraud used to carry out bribery and obstruction are central examples. False contracts and disguised payments go directly to the kind of intentional conduct the guidance describes.

The memorandum says prosecutors should prioritize conduct by its effects, rather than select companies or individuals by nationality. It also directs them to consider whether an appropriate foreign authority is willing and able to pursue the same conduct.

The Justice Department and SEC Have Different Roles

The February order addressed the attorney general and did not expressly direct the SEC to pause its work. The agencies’ FCPA Resource Guide distinguishes the Justice Department’s criminal enforcement role from the SEC’s civil enforcement involving companies subject to its securities reporting rules. The SEC’s work includes anti-bribery cases and cases about inaccurate books and inadequate accounting controls.

That distinction matters inside a business. A payment can appear in a consultant’s invoice, the subsidiary’s accounts and the parent company’s reporting, with different employees seeing different parts. Someone in finance may know why the description is false while someone in sales knows which official decision the payment bought. We connect those views of the transaction when assessing the information with you.

TIGO Guatemala Bought an Advantage in the Law Itself

TIGO Guatemala’s criminal deferred prosecution agreement, filed November 12, 2025, supplies a concrete post-pause corporate case. Under the agreement and its admitted statement of facts, the telecommunications company admitted a scheme of recurring cash bribes to Guatemalan lawmakers in exchange for favorable legislation. The admissions describe both the cash supply and the commercial advantage it bought. The Justice Department identified the FBI as the investigating agency.

One law shifted telecommunications infrastructure approvals from municipalities to the national government. For its first six months, TIGO was the only telecommunications company that met the technical specifications needed to use that national approval process. It could build infrastructure without seeking the municipal approvals its competitors needed. The company admitted earning at least approximately $58 million in profits from the scheme.

We see a particularly expensive way to lose a fair competition: the rival buys an advantage in the rules governing the market. For someone working on network expansion, the meaningful records include the authorizations, the infrastructure contracts and the company’s ability to perform them. The bribes bought more than an official’s signature on an ordinary sale.

The cash arrived in duffel bags by helicopter and was stored in a company office. Officials or their security teams sometimes collected it there. The admitted facts also describe an inflated contract used to generate a $12 million bribe fund, backdated contracts and fraudulent invoices used to make transfers look legitimate.

The company admitted a further connection that bears directly on the June policy’s concern with criminal cash:

A proposal to inflate invoices for recurring services supplied another way to generate cash. A separate ledger tracked deliveries using coded references, with a key needed to interpret them. These are records an employee might understand long before an investigator could explain their purpose: the service that cost too much, the contract dated backward, the code everyone involved knew how to read.

The agreement’s account of the investigation also describes a gap between ownership and control. Millicom had disclosed misconduct while holding a majority stake, but the Guatemalan shareholder used operational control to block access to critical information and prevent cooperation by company personnel. For someone inside a joint venture, the reporting lines on an organization chart can leave out who actually controls access to the records. Here, the agreement identifies that control as an obstacle to the parent’s investigation response.

The agreement also explains why outside information can change an investigation. The Justice Department closed its initial inquiry in 2018, then reopened it in 2020 after developing new evidence from sources outside TIGO and its parent, Millicom. That evidence revealed more of the scheme, including the use of drug-trafficking proceeds. An insider’s knowledge can supply the connection missing from the company’s account.

Liberty Mutual’s Declination Described Bribes for Referrals

Liberty Mutual’s August 7, 2025 outcome was a declination, meaning the Justice Department declined to prosecute the company. The letter from the Justice Department’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts describing the investigation nevertheless set out evidence of approximately $1.47 million in bribes paid through the company’s Indian subsidiary to officials at six state-owned banks. In exchange, the officials caused bank customers to be referred to the subsidiary’s insurance products.

The department said employees disguised the payments as marketing expenses and used intermediaries to pay the officials. The business connection was the referral: a bank employee could direct a customer toward the insurer, while the payment appeared elsewhere as a cost of attracting business. Someone who understands that distribution relationship can explain what the marketing entry conceals.

The letter credited the company’s voluntary disclosure in March 2024, cooperation and remedial work. The disclosure preceded the pause; the decision declining prosecution followed the June guidelines. We see a familiar bargain: the company avoids prosecution after helping explain bribes paid to bring it business.

Balt’s Corporate Resolution and the Charges Against Individuals

Balt’s March 17, 2026 declination letter described evidence of bribes to a senior physician at a French state-owned public hospital. The Justice Department announced the corporate resolution on March 19, alongside a separate indictment of an executive at Balt’s U.S. subsidiary and a Belgian consultant.

The corporate letter describes approximately $602,000 in bribes intended to obtain hospital purchases of endovascular embolization coils and other products. Payments went through a consultant in Belgium. The department described fake invoices and purported bonuses used to conceal their purpose, and credited Balt’s disclosure, cooperation and remedial work in declining prosecution. We see the absurdity in the paperwork: the supposed consulting expense paid the customer’s decision-maker.

The indictment alleged sham consulting agreements, fake invoices and personal email accounts. It charged the executive and consultant with FCPA and money-laundering offenses. The Justice Department identified the FBI Washington Field Office as the investigating agency, and also reported a coordinated corporate resolution with French authorities.

The customer relationship explains the opportunity. A senior hospital physician can influence which devices the institution buys, while the manufacturer’s payments travel through a consultant who appears removed from the purchasing decision. A 2015 SEC speech on pharmaceutical industry enforcement describes the wider pattern: doctors and administrators at public hospitals often decide which products their institutions purchase. For a device salesperson or finance employee, the consultant’s services and the hospital’s orders are parts of the same commercial story.

Scoular’s Inspection Payments Reached a Corporate Agreement in 2026

FCPA enforcement in 2026 included Scoular’s criminal deferred prosecution agreement, filed July 17. The Justice Department’s account of the criminal case described bribes paid through customs brokers to get agricultural shipments past Mexican inspections despite dirt, soil and other impurities.

Broker invoices called the payments reinspection fees. The department reported more than $400,000 in bribes and more than $6.5 million in avoided delay charges and other costs.

The comparison explains the incentive. A payment that appeared as an inspection expense helped avoid the much larger cost of holding up the shipment. For someone in logistics, the failed inspection, broker invoice and clearance decision belong together. For someone in accounts payable, the invoice description is only part of what the business paid for.

Smartmatic’s Alleged Bribe Fund Began in the Machine Price

The October 16, 2025 superseding indictment charged SGO Corporation Limited, the company whose structure included Smartmatic businesses, alongside individuals. The indictment alleged that executives inflated voting-machine costs for the Philippine elections to create bribe funds. It described extra per-machine fees, coded fund names, offshore transfers, fraudulent contracts and sham loans.

The alleged recipient was the chairman of the Philippines’ election commission. The indictment tied the bribes to obtaining and retaining business, including the release of contractual and favorable tax payments. It also described contract installments that depended on the chairman or his designee certifying project milestones. That puts the official’s authority beside the accounts receivable: the person allegedly receiving the bribes could help determine when the business got paid.

One alleged exchange makes the purpose of the paperwork unusually plain. The indictment describes an executive advising a colleague to change a contract’s service clause using these words:

We read that alleged instruction as the service description following the payment, rather than the payment following work performed. The distinction would be visible to someone who knew the supplier, the machine price or the work the contract supposedly covered.

Why the Person Who Knows the Business Matters

Across these cases, the payment’s description and its purpose tell different stories. Marketing expenses bought referrals in the Liberty account, consulting paperwork concealed the hospital payments in Balt, and reinspection invoices covered the Scoular payments. An employee’s explanation of the business can connect the accounting entry to the official decision and the people who approved the money.

The SEC’s pharmaceutical industry speech also describes a risk in distribution arrangements: a distributor can use its margin to create a cash fund for bribes. That extra layer can leave the manufacturer recording an apparently ordinary business expense. For someone familiar with pricing and commissions, the useful knowledge may be why the intermediary retained so much, what services were actually supplied and who benefited from the difference.

A 2019 working paper available through MIT Sloan, Do Corporate Whistleblower Laws Deter Accounting Fraud?, studied companies exposed to state False Claims Acts through state pension-fund ownership. It found that exposure to those laws reduced the estimated likelihood of accounting fraud by 5% to 9%. It also found a stronger response to the SEC whistleblower program among companies not already exposed to the state laws.

That finding gives insider information a role beyond explaining misconduct after the money has moved. The possibility that someone will speak up can affect company behavior. We take the business knowledge seriously because a false invoice is much more useful when someone can explain why it is false and what the payment accomplished.

Enforcement and Your Whistleblower Reward

The whistleblower award claim connects your contribution to the government’s result. The SEC and the Justice Department’s corporate whistleblower pilot can pay rewards tied to money the government collects, but they count different kinds of recovery. We assess the information, the resulting action and the applicable award program with you and FCPA whistleblower lawyers.

The False Claims Act addresses a separate subject, fraud against the U.S. government. A whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers. Where your information also concerns that kind of fraud, we assess that part of the case with you.

Tell Us What the Invoice Leaves Out

If you know which official benefited, what the consultant actually did or why the company changed a payment’s description, speak to one of our whistleblower experts about the bribe behind the transaction. We bring in FCPA whistleblower lawyers who understand foreign bribery and award claims, and stay beside you through the process to build your strongest FCPA whistleblower case.