James Koukios spoke to Law360 about the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) recent report, which commended the U.S. for its anti-bribery crackdown over the past decade, while calling out certain reforms that could assist in honing enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
Formerly the senior deputy chief of the FCPA's Fraud Section, James recalled that when he started in the unit in 2009, he was the third full-time dedicated FCPA prosecutor. Today, there are more than 30 such prosecutors, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's FCPA unit also has 35 members in offices around the country, the report says.
"These folks are getting more resources, and they're dedicated, nonpartisan career enforcement attorneys and prosecutors who are doing this because that's their job and they're committed to doing it right," James said.
The OECD working group also commended the U.S. for being a driving force in resolving multijurisdictional actions.
"You work together with other countries in the OECD working group, you get to share evidence, you work in parallel on these cases," James said. "One of the biggest barriers is evidence and people being outside the U.S. But when you have law enforcement partners around the world, who are actually working with you, that makes your case so much easier to build."
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Originally published by Law360.
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