New "Foreign Extortion Prevention Act" Broadens Antibribery Laws, Complements FCPA

U.S. Prosecutors Can Charge Foreign Officials With Bribery Under New Provision

U.S. authorities can now prosecute foreign officials who demand or accept bribes from Americans trying to secure business, new legal firepower granted in the recently signed annual defense legislation.

For the first time, a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act has made it a crime for a foreign official to ask for or take a bribe from an American person, a U.S. company or within a U.S. jurisdiction.

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The provision, known as the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act, broadens the scope and reach of U.S. antibribery laws in a way policy supporters say will fight corruption, which the Biden administration has said is one of its top national security priorities.

Advocates for the law say it complements the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a longstanding U.S. antibribery law that prohibits the paying of bribes to foreign officials to win or keep business. Under FEPA, violators would be fined no more than $250,000 or three times the value of the bribe; imprisoned for no more than 15 years, or both.

Matrixport: SEC to Reject Spot Bitcoin ETF Proposals in January

Crypto investment services provider Matrixport expects the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to reject all applications to list a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) this month.

“The current five-person voting Commissioners leadership critical for the ETF approval of the SEC is dominated by Democrats,” wrote the firm in a note on Wednesday. “SEC Chair Gensler is not embracing crypto in the U.S., and it might even be a very long shot to expect that he would vote to approve bitcoin spot ETFs.”

“An ETF would certainly enable crypto overall to take off, and based on Gensler’s comments in December 2023, he still sees this industry in need of more stringent compliance,” Matrixport continued. “From a political perspective, there is no reason to approve a bitcoin spot ETF that would legitimize Bitcoin as an alternative store of value.”

Gap In Time

To establish loss causation in a securities class action does the company’s stock price have to decline immediately after the alleged corrective disclosure that revealed the truth to the market? In Shash v. Biogen, Inc., 84 F.4th 1 (1st Cir. 2023), the court considered this question in a case involving a drug study and the FDA approval process.

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… The First Circuit, however, rejected the idea that a “gap in time” rendered the plaintiffs’ “theory of loss causation per se implausible.” The court held that “the issue of when Biogen’s stock price actually dropped is a question of fact” that would need to be resolved later in the litigation.

Compliance Events to Watch in 2024

Every January I try to identify those events likely to happen in the coming year that will be most consequential for corporate compliance and audit professionals. Compiling the list is never easy since there’s always so much going on, and 2024 is no exception; but in no particular order, here’s what is on my radar screen…

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SEC Disgorgement Powers in Jeopardy

You may not have noticed it at the time, but the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals delivered quite a fright to the SEC and the corporate compliance community last Halloween: a ruling that threatens the SEC’s ability to seek disgorgement of ill-gotten proceeds in a wide range of fraud cases.

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The SEC has asked the 2nd Circuit to reconsider this case. Moreover, the 5th Circuit of Appeals has already ruled that the SEC does have disgorgement powers. That means a circuit split, which is excellent grounds for the SEC to appeal to the Supreme Court if necessary. So this is a mess, and I want to see how circumstances evolve in 2024.

CBOE Digital Sees Bitcoin Spot ETFs Drawing Pension Funds, RIAs

A host of new institutional investors including pension funds and registered investment adviser-based vehicles will flock to Bitcoin assets if US regulators approve the first-ever spot exchange-traded fund for the cryptocurrency, according to CBOE Digital’s president.

“Seeing that approval is going to pave the way for pension funds and RIA-based funds to be able invest in assets in a spot Bitcoin ETF where they may not be able to gain that access today in just a native, spot Bitcoin token,” John Palmer said in an interview on Bloomberg TV.