It's safe to say that the intense effort to tackle foreign bribery has been the single most striking corporate criminal enforcement trend over the past several years. The numbers from the Justice Department's fraud section, which prosecutes Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) cases, tell an unmistakable story.

In 2004, the Department of Justice (DOJ) booked just two FCPA cases, netting a total of $11.3 million in criminal penalties. It's been a steep climb ever since.

“In '05, which was considered the banner year at that time, the FCPA folks prosecuted five individuals and collected something like $16 million,” says Markus Funk, a partner at Perkins Coie. “And then you contrast that with 2010, where if you look at the top eight cases alone, they collected more than $1.5 billion–that's with a B.”