On 10 February 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14209, directing the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to pause enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for 180 days. The stated rationale was that the FCPA had been ‘stretched beyond proper bounds’ in ways that harmed American economic competitiveness. Within weeks, on 20 March 2025, the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), France’s Parquet National Financier (PNF) and the Office of the Attorney General of

On 9 February 2026, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) published revised Enforcement and Monetary Penalties guidance. The reforms introduced a structured case assessment matrix, a settlement scheme, an Early Account Scheme for cooperative subjects and fixed penalties for reporting and licensing offences. OFSI has signalled its intention to seek legislation doubling the maximum civil penalty to the greater of £2 million or 100 per cent of the value of the

Two Chinese nationals have been charged with conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds on behalf of transnational criminal organisations, including the Sinaloa Cartel and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), according to an indictment unsealed in the Eastern District of Virginia. Ruhuan Zhen and Hongce Wu are alleged to have laundered drug money over a period spanning nearly nine years, from November 2016 to April 2025. Both defendants remain at large following their

A Georgian citizen has been sentenced to 37 months in prison for laundering more than $1.1 million in proceeds from a large-scale healthcare fraud scheme targeting Medicare and private insurers. Irakli Nakashidze, 35, a Georgian national residing in Miami, Florida, owned ABRH Care Inc (ABRH), which presented itself as a medical supply company but operated as a sham entity used to defraud Medicare. Court documents reveal that in the first six months of 2025 alone, ABRH billed

The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) is consulting on proposals that would require Mastercard and Visa to report their UK financial performance, enabling the regulator to better monitor and assess scheme profitability over time. The move follows the PSR's market review of card scheme and processing fees, which found evidence consistent with profit margins being higher than would be expected in a competitive market. The earlier review concluded that the schemes do not face effe

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced criminal charges against two defence contractors accused of orchestrating a long-running bribery and major fraud conspiracy that corrupted the competitive procurement process for a Department of War technology innovation lab in the Pacific. Leonard Pick, 62, of Palm Beach Shores, Florida, and Brian Kent, 59, of Tampa, Florida, are alleged to have manipulated the contracting process surrounding the US Army Pacific Com

On 19 May 2026, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) issued two new general trade licences under the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (the Russia Regulations), both of which came into force on 20 May 2026. The licences sit alongside the latest amendments to the regime, which introduced new prohibitions on the import of processed oil products derived from Russian crude and on the maritime transportation of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) — measures that

The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), part of HM Treasury, has imposed a £165,000 monetary penalty on Deutsche Bank AG London Branch (DBLB) for breaches of the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. The penalty, announced on 30 April 2026, relates to two payments totalling £635,618.75 processed in June and July 2022 to Okko LLC (Okko), a Russian media streaming company wholly owned by the designated person JSC New Opportunities. DBLB processed the p

In January 2026, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) published a penalty notice imposing a £160,000 monetary penalty on Bank of Scotland plc for breaches of the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. The facts were unremarkable by the standards of sanctions enforcement. A designated Russian individual, subject to UK sanctions since 2017, opened a personal current account using a UK passport. The name on the passport differed from the OFSI Consolida

An Ohio man has been sentenced to nine years in prison for running a cryptocurrency investment fraud scheme that raised more than $10 million from investors, many of them based around Columbus, Ohio. The case is the latest example of US authorities pursuing crypto-related fraud using traditional wire fraud enforcement powers. Rathnakishore Giri, 31, of New Albany, Ohio, was sentenced to nine years in prison followed by three years of supervised release after admitting to orch

Mehrdad Tabrizi, the owner of two Southern California medical companies, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering after admitting he fraudulently obtained more than $1 million in COVID-19 relief funds. The case highlights the continuing enforcement focus on abuse of pandemic-era support schemes, particularly where dormant or ineligible businesses were used to secure government-backed loans. According to the DoJ, Tabrizi used Life Fleet Inc. and Resonante Group to

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Bank of England have set out a shared long-term vision for the use of tokenisation and distributed ledger technology (DLT) in UK wholesale markets, giving firms greater certainty as they consider adopting these technologies. Tokenisation involves creating a digital representation of a real-world asset – such as a share, bond or unit of currency – on a digital ledger. The regulators believe it has the potential to streamline the is