A bill to reinforce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 by establishing a limitations period of 10 years for antibribery offenses, and for other purposes.

Key Points

• This bill gives the government more time to catch and punish people or companies that bribe foreign officials. It increases the time limit for filing criminal charges from five years to 10 years.
• The change focuses on a law that stops American businesses from using payoffs to win contracts or get special favors from foreign governments. These crimes are often hard to find because they involve secret deals and bank accounts in other countries.
• Supporters believe that five years is not enough time for investigators to follow the money across international borders. Doubling the time limit helps make sure that complex corruption cases do not get dropped just because the investigation took too long.
• The new 10-year window would apply to any new crimes and any crimes from the last five years. It would not allow the government to reopen very old cases that have already passed their legal deadline.
• This policy is temporary. The 10-year limit would only stay in place for eight years after the bill is signed into law. After that, the rules would go back to the original five-year limit unless Congress votes to keep the change.

Impact Analysis

Govbase has not yet run an impact analysis on this legislation.