A new anti-bribery and corruption alliance among enforcement authorities in the UK, France and Switzerland sends a clear message to corporates that any pause in enforcement of the US FCPA does not mean that acts of bribery by corporates will be tolerated.
20 March 2025 marked the establishment of the International Anti-Corruption Prosecutorial Taskforce with three agencies as founding members: the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO), France's Parquet National Financier (PNF) and the Swiss Office of the Attorney General (OAG).
The establishment of the Taskforce recognises the "significant threat of bribery and corruption and the severe harm that it causes," as well as the value of cooperation and collaboration in tackling that threat. The one-page Founding Statement, signed by the three agencies, outlines the initial goals of the Taskforce: (1) establishing a Leaders' Group to share insight and strategy; (2) establishing a Working Group to create proposals for cooperation on cases; (3) sharing best practices to benefit from members' expertise; and (4) strengthening the foundation for collaboration among members.1
In discussing the creation of the Taskforce, the SFO's Director Nick Ephgrave commented that the Taskforce "reaffirms our individual and collective commitment to tackling the pernicious threat of international bribery and corruption, wherever it occurs." UK Solicitor General Lucy Rigby further stated, "through strong international partnerships, [the Taskforce] will be able to robustly tackle cross-border economic crime."
The announcement of the Taskforce follows US President Trump's 10 February 2025 Executive Order instructing the US Attorney General to pause enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and to issue updated guidelines for enforcing the statute. Our February 2025 alert observed that the shift in US enforcement priorities might result in an increase in anti-corruption enforcement in other jurisdictions.
Ephgrave stated that the Taskforce is "in no way a reaction" to the US FCPA enforcement pause and was in the making for a year-and-a-half before its public announcement. Nonetheless, as the US backs away from its long-standing position as the world's most active anti-corruption and financial crime enforcer, a formal declaration of collaboration among three anti-corruption enforcement agencies with an increasing amount of successful cooperation – albeit often with the involvement of their US counterparts – signals that these non-US enforcement authorities remain committed to combating corruption globally. The message to corporates around the world is that there are other authorities willing and able to act. This is an important reminder and means that corporates need to ensure their compliance regimes operate effectively and are updated to deal with evolving risks.
Collectively, defendants from the three member countries of the Taskforce represent approximately 13% of US FCPA enforcement actions by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and/or the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Of all the enforcement actions (relating to both corporates and individuals) brought since the FCPA came into force in 1977, a database search reveals 21 involving defendants from France, 28 from Switzerland, and 48 from the UK.2 There will clearly be plenty of high-value, high-stakes cases on which the Taskforce's member authorities can work. In France, as of 1 January 2024, 25% of conventions judiciaires d'interêt public (CJIPs) (the French equivalent of Deferred Prosecution Agreements ("DPAs")) concern foreign companies, including at least two Swiss companies and one British company.
Three pillars of strength
There may be scepticism in some quarters as to how effective this relatively informal partnership will be given the vast scale of the challenge as fraud and corruption reach unprecedented levels and continues to rise. However, as the UK, French and Swiss enforcement agencies will have made their announcement with the assent of their respective governments, there is no reason to doubt they genuinely intend to pursue and resolve more anti-corruption investigations by building their capacity to do so, as well as by obtaining greater control over the ways such matters are resolved with companies headquartered or operating in their jurisdictions.
The Taskforce will, of course, do things differently than the US: each member agency is operating in a different political environment with varied tools and resources available to it. However, all three agencies are well-established and experienced, and have demonstrated willingness and resolve to step up in the past, as our experience advising clients has shown. Furthermore, the three member countries all have far-reaching anti-corruption legislation – including the UK Bribery Act 2010, France's Sapin II, and Article 322 of the Swiss Criminal Code – with jurisdiction to prosecute criminal conduct that occurs abroad if there is a sufficient nexus to the prosecuting country.
The Taskforce countries also continue to bolster their enforcement efforts. In the UK, the SFO has been granted wider pre-investigation powers to compel individuals and companies to provide information where it has reasonable grounds to suspect that serious or complex fraud, bribery or corruption has taken place;3 it will also be able to take advantage of new laws that put corporate criminal liability on a statutory footing, as well as a new corporate offence of failure to prevent fraud.4
The agency has recently made public several new investigations by launching dawn raids, marking a dramatic escalation in approach and potentially a return to the more robust style the agency previously adopted. Ephgrave has explicitly stated his aspiration for the SFO to stand as "the collaboration partner of choice", internationally and domestically; for example, in addition to jointly forming the Taskforce, it was revealed recently that the SFO has signed a memorandum of understanding with Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission. Ephgrave has pushed for the UK to implement ways of incentivising whistleblowers, noting the successes achieved in the US using those methods. In addition, as revealed in the SFO's latest annual business plan and a speech by Ephgrave which launched it, the SFO will shortly be updating its guidance for corporates, as well as building out its covert intelligence capabilities – a reflection of Ephgrave's policing background.5 These steps are being taken with the aim of increasing the number of corporates that the SFO investigates.
The Swiss authorities have demonstrated increased capacity to investigate and resolve matters within their borders. Their involvement in various Swiss bank sanctions investigations and collaboration with the U.S. DOJ and Treasury Departments in relation to dozens of Swiss banks and clients seeking tax amnesty, and more recently pursuing similar matters involving Swiss-based insurers in connection with various annuity products sold to customers around the world, collectively provided for Swiss investigating judges and law enforcement partners to cut their teeth in establishing capacities to pursue similar anti-corruption cases.6 Swiss Attorney General Stefan Blättler has indicated plans to introduce whistleblowing regulations in Switzerland and stated that Switzerland is currently assessing implementation of DPAs in alignment with the enforcement practices of other countries, including France, the UK and the US. He has also recently called for an increase in criminal investigations personnel, as well as broader "US-style" legal powers.
In France, the authorities have developed investigative capacity to support the CJIP, which was introduced by the law of 9 December 2016 (Sapin II law) on corruption and its prevention. This capacity has been developed as a result of the law enforcement focus on French and global banks and corporates. With new guidelines published on 14 March 2023, the PNF and the French Anti-corruption Agency (known as the AFA) encourages corporates to progress internal investigations and voluntarily self-report issues which are uncovered. For the PNF, such a voluntary approach constitutes proof of good faith which can lead to a 50% reduction in possible fines during the negotiation.
A history of effective cooperation
The three agencies making up the Taskforce have previously, and successfully, worked together (and with others) in various permutations on a number of complex anti-corruption cases.
The French authorities have featured in many large, global cases. The USD 4 billion global settlement with Airbus in 2020 followed a three-year joint investigation between the SFO and PNF. It involved a UK DPA under which Airbus agreed to pay a penalty of EUR 990 million, a separate CJIP in France, and agreements with the US authorities. The terrorist financing admissions by Lafarge SA and its Syrian subsidiary which led to a USD 778 million settlement with the DOJ were facilitated in part by assistance provided by the PNF. More recently, it was revealed that the SFO and PNF are working on a joint investigation into the Thales Group.78
Switzerland's participation in international alliances and the OAG's cooperative stance in cross-border matters has proven vitally important, too. For example, the work of the OAG assisted in a high value settlement with a French multinational company in 2014, and OAG has participated in numerous anti-corruption enforcement matters involving the US DOJ and other national authorities. For example, OAG played a key role in a USD 1 billion+ plea deal involving the DOJ, the SFO and a natural resources corporation in 2022 and resolved its own case with the corporation in 2024. OAG also participated in global coordinated resolutions with the DOJ and South African authorities involving a global technology company in 2022 and with the DOJ involving another natural resources corporation in 2024. Another instructive example is the Swiss participation in the 2016 US resolution with Odebrecht, in which cooperation amongst Swiss, Brazilian, and US authorities led to substantial criminal financial penalties to the Swiss authorities arising from a 15-year corruption scheme.
Additionally, beginning in 2013, Swiss authorities and the U.S. DOJ cooperated in the "Swiss Bank Program" which enabled hundreds of Swiss banks (and later Swiss insurance companies) to seek reduction of penalties or avoidance from US prosecution for their involvement in concealing non-Swiss persons' assets in Swiss accounts. This multi-year effort involved presentations and investigations of more than 80 settling Swiss banks and many others, involving Swiss authorities in a level of international cooperation that extended their investigative and technical reach considerably.9
Switzerland, France and the UK are also members of various international anti-corruption arrangements, including the UN Convention against Corruption, the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, the Council of Europe's Criminal Law Convention on Corruption of the Council of Europe, and the G20 anti-corruption working group.
A statement of principle
Of course, it remains to be seen whether the creation of the Taskforce, and its members' reaffirmed commitment to combatting transnational corruption amidst the pause in US FCPA enforcement and related realignment of US enforcement priorities and resources, results in a meaningful increase in investigations and enforcement actions. Nonetheless, the mere fact of the creation of the Taskforce alliance represents a significant – and very public – statement of intent from the UK, France and Switzerland in the current geopolitical landscape. This development demonstrates that investigation and prosecution of global corruption remains a priority for the Taskforce members regardless of the significant change in US enforcement strategy.
It is also of significance that the Taskforce's founding members say they intend to invite "other like-minded agencies" involved in tackling bribery and corruption to join, further expanding the reach of this new alliance.
The Taskforce represents yet another reason why companies operating internationally should continue to maintain effective and well-resourced anti-corruption compliance programs and controls.
White & Case is home to a team of highly experienced white-collar lawyers based across Europe who are able to advise on the implications of the new Taskforce. Our lawyers have practice experience litigating exactly the kind of matters the Taskforce’s member authorities will be seeking to open in the coming months.
1 International Anti-Corruption Prosecutorial Task Force, Founding Statement (20 March 2025), available at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67dc0bb3931ea30d1b7ee33d/International_Anti-Corruption_Prosecutorial_Taskforce.pdf.
2 Stanford Law School FCPA Clearinghouse, available at https://fcpa.stanford.edu/index.html.
3 Section 2A of the Criminal Justice Act 1987, as amended.
4 Both introduced by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023; the offence of failure to prevent fraud will be implemented from 1 September 2025.
5 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/serious-fraud-office-sets-out-next-steps-in-ambitious-plan; https://globalinvestigationsreview.com/article/sfo-aims-revive-corporate-cooperation.
6 White & Case teams were active in all of these matters, respectively representing several banks and dozens of bankers in the sanctions matters, several banks in relation to tax amnesty, and two insurance companies in the annuity cases.
7 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sfo-announces-bribery-investigation-into-defence-firm.
8 Our lawyers' experience in the UK includes representing an individual in relation to a multi-jurisdictional corruption investigation being carried out by UK, US and Swiss law enforcement; conducting an internal investigation and a self-report to the SFO which ultimately concluded by way of a DPA; and advising on investigations conducted by the Swiss authorities.
9 See "Justice Department Announces Final Swiss Bank Program Category 2 Resolution with HSZH Verwaltungs AG," DOJ Press Release, 27 January 2016.
