Media Coverage
Source: Thomson Reuters News & Insight
Media Coverage
03.12.12
In a March 12, 2012 “On the Case” column, Thomson Reuters reported that Pillsbury partner William Sullivan has said that government prosecutors have shown a "renewed interest" in the U.S. Travel Act. As Sullivan explained in a Pillsbury Client Alert, the Travel Act actually allows greater prosecutorial leeway than the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, since it doesn't target just bribes to foreign officials. Any bribe, or even attempted bribe, with a commercial purpose can trigger prosecution under the Travel Act, so long as the accused corporation is subject to an underlying state law prohibiting bribery for commercial purposes. (And as Sullivan notes, prosecutors can usually find some state law to fit their allegations.)
The Travel Act also permits the government to extend the statute of limitations through a hybrid federal conspiracy charge that claims the defendants intended to violate the FCPA and the Travel Act. "This makes it much easier for prosecutors to string together seemingly unlinked fact patterns, and also affords prosecutors additional advantages with respect to statutes of limitations, as the statute is tolled until the last act in furtherance of the conspiracy," the Pillsbury client alert said.
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