The new enforcement avengers?

International cooperation in enforcement is nothing new. 

Many major UK, Swiss, and French enforcement actions have involved some element of cross-border collaboration and there have been some prominent examples of the UK and French prosecutors working together. The creation of this Taskforce is consistent with a clear trend of the ever-increasing active role that non-U.S. regulators take in global crime enforcement, a trend alluded to when the Swiss Attorney General said that some cases “pushed [them] forward” towards the alliance. Even before the establishment of this Taskforce, Switzerland has taken several prominent recent enforcement actions, indicating its willingness and ability to play a significant role in international enforcement against white-collar crimes: 

• In recent years, the Swiss OAG has been actively enforcing against foreign bribery in the commodities trading sector. In August 2024, it issued a fine against a Swiss multinational commodities trader for failures to prevent bribery of foreign public officials from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Earlier this year, a Singapore-based multinational commodities trader and one of its former senior executives were convicted for alleged bribery of an Angolan official. 
• The Swiss OAG has also made consistent enforcement efforts against financial institutions for anti-money laundering breaches, such as failing to detect or report suspicious transactions made to facilitate international crimes. In March 2024, the OAG fined a Swiss bank for failing to detect and prevent suspicious transactions linked to Operation Car Wash, a major Brazilian corruption scandal. In May 2024, the finance ministry of Switzerland fined one of the largest Swiss multinational banks for failing to report suspicious transactions linked to the former present of Yemen despite clear corruption concerns. In November 2024, the OAG indicted a Swiss private bank for failing to detect and prevent money laundering of an international criminal organization allegedly led by the daughter of the former president of Uzbekistan. 

The establishment of the Taskforce is in line with the agencies’ active stance in enforcement collaboration amongst regulators. In November 2024, the UK SFO and the French PNF launched joint investigations into suspected bribery and corruption involving the French and British entities of a multinational aviation and defence company, in relation to the performance of a contract in Asia. In 2020, a global aviation company reached a global settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the SFO, and the PNF involving US$3billion of penalties which many commentators argued was the high point of global co-operation. Certainly, it was the first major prosecution and investigation where the SFO and PNF worked so closely together.

There is no doubt that the launch of this Taskforce will enable a continued effort to tackle enforcement of financial crime through close collaboration. However, there is some pressure on the SFO in particular to increase its own domestic efforts in tackling financial crime. 

Apart from strengthening collaboration across the three agencies, the Taskforce has the potential to lead the way for other enforcement agencies to contribute to the joint global effort. The three agencies have announced that they would welcome other agencies to join the Taskforce. The SFO has also indicated its keen interest to work with regulators from the Asia Pacific region, as evident from its visit to Singapore and Indonesia last month to meet up with Singapore’s Attorney-General’s Chambers, Singapore Police Force, and Monetary Authority of Singapore, and with Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi), to discuss about economic crime prevention and enforcement. 

There is a notable absentee. 

The announcement of the Taskforce comes only a few weeks after the U.S. government ordered a pause on FCPA enforcement for at least six months. Although SFO director Nick Ephgrave QPM indicated that the Taskforce is not a reaction to the FCPA pause, the Taskforce could potentially fill the enforcement gap in international crime enforcement created by the FCPA pause. With the three agencies joining forces, we would not be surprised to see a more diverse range of regulators around the world build roles as policers of global anti-corruption activity. 

As we have cautioned in our recent article on the FCPA enforcement pause (“Criminal FCPA Enforcement paused. Now What?”), companies should continue addressing and mitigating foreign corruption risks and invest in compliance program enhancements. This is becoming increasingly critical given the heightened activities of domestic enforcement regulators.¹ 

Authored by Stephanie Yonekura, Peter Spivack, Khushaal Ved, Liam Naidoo, Jean-Pierre Picca, Jean-Lou Salha, Hsiao Tien Tan, Paris Buti.