At a legal industry event on 9 April 2025, Marcelo Pontes Vianna, the head of the secretariat for private integrity of Brazil's Office of the Comptroller General (CGU), the national antibribery agency, highlighted Brazil's proactive approach to expanding its global network, underscoring the importance of multi-agency cooperation in combating international corruption, and reaffirming to clients that even in an FCPA pause, the regulators are watching and working together.
We also point to signs that the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) pause has some significant exceptions.
‘Other’ non-U.S.regulators team up amidst FCPA enforcement pause
Brazil’s efforts to build cross-border anti-corruption alliances reflects a broader trend of local regulators collaborating in joint enforcement efforts. With the U.S. FCPA enforcement pause, there has been documented recognition of an international collaborative response to corruption enforcement. As we first predicted in our recent article on the FCPA enforcement pause (“Criminal FCPA Enforcement paused. Now What?”),1 the U.S. enforcement pause could encourage foreign regulators to fill the enforcement gap. We then saw the UK, Swiss, and French regulators set up an enforcement taskforce, which we discussed in our recent article “The new enforcement avengers?”.2
Now, more jurisdictions, including Brazil, China, and Hong Kong, have gathered to contribute and to tackle enforcement efforts. With the rise of these initiatives, we can expect to see a diverse range of local regulators step up their enforcement efforts against global corruption.
Brazil’s enforcement history
Brazil is no stranger to cross-border collaboration on global corruption enforcement. Vianna emphasized that the CGU has previously collaborated with regulators from various countries, including Portugal, Switzerland, Singapore, and South Korea.
Operation Car Wash (in Portuguese “Operação Lava Jato”), one of the largest anti-corruption investigations in Brazil and the world, the Brazilian authorities have worked with enforcement agencies from multiple countries including the U.S., Switzerland, U.K., and Singapore, to facilitate the exchange of information, asset recovery, and the prosecution and conviction of involved individuals and entities.
Recent actions by the CGU
Despite Brazil’s history of enforcement, CGU’s recent announcement is significant as it solidifies Brazil's continuing commitment to global anti-corruption efforts despite the FCPA enforcement pause. Beyond its existing enforcement allies, Brazil is actively expanding its network as part of a broader strategy to enhance cross-border investigations, ensuring that anti-corruption efforts remain robust and effective even amidst shifts in international enforcement landscapes. Late last year, CGU’s leader Vinícius de Carvalho visited Beijing’s anti-corruption agency to discuss the establishment of a “cooperation protocol”. In March this year, the CGU also hosted the International Meeting on Investigation and the Fight Against Corruption and welcomed enforcement officers from Hong Kong to exchange and improve investigation strategies, as well as to strengthen collaboration between the two countries.
CGU is also advancing key reforms to enhance its domestic enforcement capabilities. One significant initiative under consideration is the creation of a formal process for companies to voluntarily self-disclose misconduct, cooperate with authorities, and remediate effectively to avoid prosecution – similar to the U.S. "declination" mechanism under its FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy. In August 2024, CGU introduced the “Term of Commitment” (in Portuguese “Termo de Compromisso”), which is a mechanism that allows companies that acknowledge responsibility for misconduct to resolve administrative proceedings without admitting guilt, thereby avoiding the reputational and legal consequences associated with formal convictions. The Term of Commitment is designed for cases where leniency agreements are not applicable, particularly when companies lack new information to offer authorities.
CGU is also revising its guidelines for leniency agreements to provide greater legal certainty, transparency, and consistency in negotiations. This push for modernization is part of a broader international trend. The Director of the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), for example, has recently signaled that the UK is also considering similar mechanisms to promote corporate self-reporting and cooperation.
What’s next
As the global enforcement landscape continues to evolve, companies operating across multiple countries or regions may encounter increasingly complex compliance risks and business challenges. Complicating matters, there is the further concern that enforcement in certain jurisdictions may not be immune to geopolitical influence.
Companies may need to respond to multiple regulators, which have different expectations and interests in achieving a resolution. Navigating the different regulatory environments requires a comprehensive understanding of diverse legal frameworks and the ability to adapt to varying requirements.
It is important for clients to have local and experienced investigations and compliance legal teams (either in-house or for significant matters or 2nd opinions: external counsel) in these spaces: Brazil, China, the UK, France, Singapore, as well as the U.S. Specialists who are familiar with the regulators and their regimes.
It is essential for companies to develop robust and well-tailored internal controls to effectively manage their compliance and regulatory risks. Companies operating in Brazil and China should reassess the resilience and sufficiency of their compliance system in the event of potential regulatory probes.
Senior management leading companies should also be mindful that regulators may take enforcement actions against individuals. The U.S. DOJ has consistently emphasized individual accountability as a cornerstone of its enforcement strategy. Despite the enforcement pause, DOJ is going forward with some individual prosecutions following its prioritized review of certain FCPA cases. This prioritization reflects the DOJ’s approach and potential focus on holding individuals accountable for corrupt practices. DOJ has also noted that individual enforcement is not limited to the U.S. jurisdiction and that it frequently coordinates with foreign authorities to identify and prosecute individuals across borders, reinforcing its global approach to anti-corruption.
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