• The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 is a law that criminalizes directors and officers of corporations for making illegal payments to foreign officials. For example, the Minister of Commerce of Country A may require an annual payment of $50,000 from Corporation X in exchange for the Corporation’s permission to ship its products to Country A. Payment by Corporation X of such money would constitute a violation of the FCPA and could expose Corporation X and its directors to and officials to account in the United States. In recent years, there has been a marked increase in the number of prosecutions in connection with the FCPA. This is partly because the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOx) requires senior executives to scrutinize their company’s internal control system, certify its financial statements, and report possible FCPA violations to the company’s board of directors, its audit committee, or chief legal adviser. Officer. One high-profile FCPA case in 2012 involved a former Wal-Mart executive who alleged that his firm paid Mexican government officials millions of dollars in exchange for accelerating the opening of new stores there.