During the week of March 16, 2025, three regulators with
significant extra-territorial anti-corruption enforcement
jurisdiction announced plans to create a new International
Anti-Corruption Prosecutorial Taskforce (the Taskforce) to
coordinate on future anti-corruption enforcement
efforts.1 The announcement was clearly a response to
what was perceived as the intent of the current U.S. administration
to pull back, at least temporarily, from enforcement of the U.S.
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act against U.S. businesses.
France's Parquet National Financier (PNF), the Office of the
Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG), and the UK's Serious
Fraud Office (SFO) issued a statement on March 20, 2025, affirming
the agencies' shared commitment to combatting corruption within
both "national and international frameworks," which would
include obligations to combat bribery and corruption as members of
the OECD.
The statement noted that the new Taskforce would enhance judicial
collaboration between the three institutions – PNF, SFO, and
OAG – in the fight against corruption and other breaches of
probity.
The Taskforce will seek to:
- increase operational exchanges in the handling of individual cases (i.e., cases prosecuted individually by one of the three institutions) through (i) regular exchanges of views and strategy, and (ii) proposals for cooperative action in individual cases; and
- establish a broader framework for reflection on international anti-corruption strategy by (i) optimizing the sharing of best practices to take full advantage of combined expertise, and (ii) seizing opportunities for operational collaboration.
All three agency heads issued statements welcoming the operational cooperation among their agencies and noting the importance of such cooperation to combatting cross-border cooperation. Conspicuously absent was any reference to collaboration with the U.S., despite the longstanding role of the U.S. in prosecuting foreign corruption.
Understanding The Role of the Taskforce in the EU Regulatory Framework
The establishment of the Taskforce takes place amid the ongoing
trilogue negotiations (i.e., between the European
Parliament, the Council of the EU, and the European Commission) for
a European directive on combating corruption. The negotiations
began in January 2025 and are expected to be concluded in the
course of 2025.
Because of the absence of a common regulatory framework within the
EU, the fight against corruption is mainly handled at the national
level by the Member States. To that end, the European
Commission's proposal for a directive of May 3, 2023, on the
fight against corruption2 seeks to harmonize the concept
of criminal liability for corruption among member
states3.
Implications for Multinational Corporations
As in many other areas, the announcement reflects an increasing
divergence between U.S. and European policy. It is also a reminder
that U.S. companies with a presence in European markets and that
use the European banking system must maintain a robust
anti-corruption compliance program. The failure to maintain such a
program would be viewed as an aggravating factor in any
investigation by the SFO or the PNF. Indeed, under the French Sapin
II law, companies of a certain size (as measured by employees or
revenues) with headquarters or presence in France have a positive
obligation to develop and maintain a robust compliance program that
includes a code of conduct, internal warning system, risk
assessment procedures, and internal accounting controls.
In our previous alert issued regarding the Presidential
Executive Order temporarily suspending the enforcement of the FCPA,
we noted that multinationals must keep their eye on other
anti-corruption enforcement regulators, and the announcement of the
new Taskforce reinforces the importance of that. Indeed, we can
expect to see these agencies looking to step into any void created
by the lack of FCPA enforcement by, among other things, improving
their own information sharing, referring cases to each other, and
coordinating enforcement where they share jurisdiction. In this
regard, it is worth noting that the PNF, OAG and SFO all stated
that they intend to invite other 'like-minded" agencies
involved in tackling international bribery and corruption to join
the Taskforce.
Footnotes
1. Founding Statement of the International Anti-Corruption Prosecutorial Taskforce, March 20, 2025, available online: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-anti-corruption-prosecutorial-taskforce?utm_source=Compliances%2C+la+newsletter&utm_campaign=59d43a1b46-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2_14_2020_12_12_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1711e8d6c0-59d43a1b46-489724888. See also: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-anti-corruption-prosecutorial-taskforce
2. Proposal for a DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on combating corruption, replacing Council Framework Decision 2003/568/JHA and the Convention on the fight against corruption involving officials of the European Communities or officials of Member States of the European Union and amending Directive (EU) 2017/1371 of the European Parliament and of the Council, available online: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/procedure/EN/2023_135
3. For more information, please see Camille Mayet's LinkedIn article on this subject: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/camillemayetfr_conseil-de-lue-proposition-de-directive-activity-7302694874233909249-D1P5?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAADRWU8MBbvhDmdVSzYsrgylVMSYcHTU41hY
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