The federal racketeering statute, originally drafted to “eradicat[e]…organized crime in the United States,”1 continues to expand in scope and applicability. Indeed, despite the numerous white collar initiatives and new financial criminal statutes, such as Sarbanes-Oxley, enacted to deal with a spate of perceived holes in the nation’s regulatory scheme, RICO prosecutions remain as popular as ever.2 United States v. Philip Morris,3 a recent decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, highlights the ways in which the government continues to push the envelope in such cases.
The issues raised in that case, as outlined in various certiorari petitions to the U.S. Supreme Court by defendants and the government, are topics of interest to white collar practitioners who already are handling RICO cases outside the originally intended “organized crime” context. Specifically, the case raises questions regarding the extraterritorial application of the RICO statute, whether a group of corporations can constitute a racketeering “enterprise,” and whether the government can seek disgorgement of profits as a result of RICO violations.
Extraterritoriality of Statute
