Column: Trump paused anti-corruption enforcement. These cases are headed for trial anyway.

The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.

By Jenna Greene

Feb 28 (Reuters) - When lawyer Richard Gaines saw the executive order by President Donald Trump earlier this month pausing enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, he said it looked like a potential lifeline for his client.

Gaines, who represents a former coal company executive accused of scheming to bribe officials in Egypt, last week asked a federal judge in Pittsburgh to push back his client Charles Hunter Hobson’s April trial date by six months or more. Hobson denies wrongdoing.

Trump's executive order "puts all FCPA enforcement actions in doubt,” wrote Gaines and co-counsel James Price in their motion for a continuance.

But so far, there’s little public sign prosecutors are changing course in pending FCPA cases, including the handful that are scheduled for trial.

The White House press office referred my request for comment to DOJ. A DOJ spokesperson declined comment.

In a conference call on Feb. 24 with U.S. District Judge Robert Colville, Gaines said that prosecutors indicated they plan to oppose delaying the trial when they respond to his motion next week.

In another FCPA case involving two former tech industry executives, U.S. Justice Department lawyers confirmed last week that they intend to proceed to trial in New Jersey federal court on March 3.

The moves seem to be at odds with Trump's Feb. 10 executive order. The president directed Attorney General Pam Bondi over the next 180 days to revise her agency's FCPA guidelines, cease bringing new investigations and evaluate existing cases “in detail," taking action as needed "to restore proper bounds."

I reviewed the dockets of all ongoing criminal FCPA cases less than 10 years old — 33 open matters in courts across the country, according to Stanford Law School’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Clearinghouse database — looking at all court filings since the order issued on Feb. 10. (The tally does not include civil FCPA enforcement actions by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which are not covered by the executive order.)

In recent filings, prosecutors have brought run-of-the-mill motions about taking a deposition, for example, or asking to submit an over-long brief. Most cases had no new activity at all.

What I didn't see were requests by DOJ to pause ongoing litigation pending review and new guidance, as suggested by the executive order — though one trial has been delayed three weeks.

The FCPA, enacted in 1977, is intended to deter and punish corrupt business acts around the world, such as bribing foreign officials. Trump has been a longtime critic of the law (he called it "horrible" in a 2012 interview), though in his first term, enforcement remained robust.

The White House, in announcing the FCPA pause, said the law puts U.S. companies at a disadvantage by prohibiting them "from engaging in practices common among international competitors."

Over the past decade, there has been an average of 36 FCPA-related enforcement actions per year, the White House said. Most of the cases settle.

Last year, U.S. regulators imposed more than $1.5 billion in sanctions, according to the Stanford data. On average, individual defendants are sentenced to 31 months in prison, whether behind bars or under house arrest.

Soon after Trump's executive order, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz in New Jersey sought some clarity on its effect on the case involving Cognizant Technology Solutions.

He asked DOJ lawyers to file a letter with the court stating their position as to the upcoming trial of ex-Cognizant executives Gordon Coburn and Steven Schwartz, which is due to begin Monday. The duo, who have pleaded not guilty, are accused of authorizing an unlawful payment of $2 million to government officials in India to obtain a permit to open a new office campus.

“Following its review of this case pursuant to the Executive Order,” DOJ lawyers wrote in a three-sentence letter on Feb. 21, “the Government intends to proceed to trial.”

Lawyers for Coburn from Jones Day and Schwartz from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Gibbons declined comment.

White collar criminal defense lawyer Sara Kropf, who is not involved in the case, questioned why the government is charging ahead.

“If the administration is ‘pausing’ FCPA enforcement until there is DOJ guidance, then why is this case continuing?” she said via email, adding that there’s “no explanation in the public filings to explain the disconnect between the Executive Order and the prosecutors’ position in this case.”

Defense counsel for Coburn and Schwartz in a Feb. 21 letter to the court seem equally perplexed. Despite the terms of the executive order, DOJ here “does not indicate whether the Attorney General has issued updated guidelines, determined that the continuance of this case is consistent with those updated guidelines, or specifically authorized the government to proceed to trial," they wrote.

In the case pushed back three weeks, a Florida federal judge delayed the start of trial from April 7 to April 28, after government lawyers said they were in "compliance" with Trump's order.

The case involves a Georgia businessman, a former Honduran government official and a former Florida resident, who face charges for allegedly participating in a scheme to bribe Honduran government officials to secure contracts to provide uniforms to the Honduran National Police.

According to a bare-bones Feb. 18 docket entry, U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Becerra in Miami “inquired as to a continuance of trial. Government informed Court of their compliance with the President's executive order. All counsel agreed to a continuance."

Defense counsel did not respond to requests for further comment.

As for the case involving Egyptian coal, which is currently set for trial on April 21, Gaines told me his client is eager for DOJ to review the charges against him.

According to a seven-count indictment filed in 2022, Hobson and others allegedly agreed to pay commissions to a sales intermediary, who passed on bribes to an Egyptian state-owned company. In exchange, Hobson’s employer, Corsa Coal, allegedly landed $143 million in coal contracts.

Hobson could face years in prison if convicted of the charges, which also include money laundering and wire fraud.

“If Donald Trump took five minutes and looked at our case, we believe that the government would dismiss our case,” Gaines told me, pointing to a Feb. 5 memo by Bondi that preceded Trump's order and prioritized FCPA investigations related to cartels and international criminal organizations — neither of which apply here.

Gaines and fellow FCPA defense counsel are drafting a letter to DOJ asking for clarification, he said.

"We thought the (executive order) meant what it said," he told me. "I'm not quite sure what's going on over there."