As the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) enters recess after a summer of highly publicized decisions, predictions of the likely impact of these precedents begin to form. In the criminal context, following SCOTUS’s recent decision in Snyder v. United States, 144 S. Ct. 1947 (2024), which narrowly interpreted an anti-bribery statute and found that it did not prohibit after-the-fact tips (or “illegal gratuities”), one theme emerges: SCOTUS is set to curb the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) enthusiasm for filling gaps in ambiguous bribery statutes in ways that serve its worldwide drive to crack down on corruption.

Whether prosecutors will heed the high court’s instruction in other areas is yet to be seen.  One area to observe is foreign bribery, crimes prosecuted primarily through the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), 15 U.S.C. §§78dd–1, et seq., now with the help of its new cousin, the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA), H.R. 2670, 118th Cong. (1st Sess. 2023).