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Donald Trump has ordered the Ministry of Justice to stop the application of an American anti-corruption law which prevents Americans from welding leaders of the foreign government to gain affairs.
“This will mean much more business for America,” said the president in the oval office after having signed an executive decree that led Pam Bondi on Monday, the American prosecutor, to interrupt the application of the 1977 law on the 1977 foreign corruption practices.
An official of the White House said: “US national security depends on America and its companies that obtain strategic trade benefits in the world, and President Trump stops the excessive and unpredictable application of the FCPA which makes the less competitive American companies. “
The order marks one of the most daring application policies issued by the administration of Trump, potentially undergoing a critical tool by repressing individual and business misconduct.
The FCPA supported some of the most publicized cases of the DoJ, including a plea agreement which it concluded last year with Trafigura on the bribes of the trading house of raw materials concluded in Brazil to keep Business with the petroleum company controlled by the Petrobras state.
In 2022, one of the former senior partners of McKinsey pleaded guilty of having participated in a conspiracy to violate the FCPA in relation to a scandal of sprawling corruption during the administration of the former South African president Jacob Zuma.
And last October, the American defense entrepreneur RTX agreed to pay more than $ 950 million on the complaints he welded by a Qatari official to facilitate arms sales in the country and defrauded the Pentagon Extra for weapons, including patriotic missile systems.
The Manager of the White House said that Bondi issued new application councils which “promote American competitiveness and the effective use of federal laws for the application of the law”, adding that the previous and existing actions of the FCPA would be examined .
American companies have been damaged by the “overcharging” of the law, because “they are prohibited from engaging in common practices among international competitors, creating uneven playground,” added the manager.
The White House said that US national security requires strategic advantages in various infrastructure assets, such as critical minerals and deep water ports.
FCPA proceedings have imposed “an increasing cost on the economy of our country,” said the manager, citing the 26 application actions linked to the law filed by the Ministry of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission L ‘last year.
The SEC created a unit specialized in 2010 to strengthen its application of FCPA, which it had described as a “high priority area”.
Last year, the agency of last year used the law to invoice a former executive of the Renewable Company at the heart of a case accusing the Indian billionaire Gautam Adani of perpetrating a corruption program linked to projects ‘solar energy. The DoJ also brought a criminal indictment. Azure said that the former employees referenced in the accusations had been “separated” for more than a year and that the Adani group qualified the accusations of “baseless”.
Legal experts argued the case, which was deposited before Trump returns to the White House inaugurated in a new general lawyer, could be established on his presidency.
Having dozens of law implementation measures have been drained by companies and the law enforcement, said the manager. Thirty-one companies were under investigations related to the FCPA at the end of 2024, they added.
The DoJ did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
