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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.
“It seems good on paper, but in (practical) it is a disaster,” said Trump about the FCPA. “This means that if an American goes to a foreign country and begins to do business there legally, legitimately or otherwise, it is almost a guaranteed investigation, an indictment and no one wants to do business with the Americans to cause of this. “
An official of the White House said that the “national security of the country depends on America and its companies which benefit from strategic trade benefits worldwide”.
The manager added: “President Trump stops the excessive and unpredictable application of the FCPA which makes American companies less competitive.”
The order marks one of the most daring application policies issued by the Trump administration, potentially undermining 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.
Last October, the US 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 Middle East country and A Fauded the Pentagon in too much payment for weapons, including patriotic missile systems.
The decision aroused criticism from anti-corruption experts who said that the law enforcement would harm US companies operating abroad.
“Most companies (United States) appreciate the fact that FCPA allows them to closure to refuse bribes because most companies in the private sector-substantially-consider corruption as an unproductive cost” , said Richard Nephew, former anti-corruption coordinator of the State of the Department State, published on X.
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 required 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.
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 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 regulator billed a former Azure Power Global executive, a renewable energy company at the heart of a case accusing the Indian billionaire Gautam Adani of perpetrating a corruption program. The DoJ also brought a criminal indictment.
Azure said the former employees referenced in the accusations had been “separated” for more than a year. The Adani group described the accusations of “baseless”.
Legal experts argued, which was deposited before Trump’s return to the White House, could compete in his presidency.
The DoJ did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
