The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Handbook: A Practical Guide for Multinational General Counsel, Transactional Lawyers, and White Collar Criminal Prosecutors

Winner of American Book Fest’s 2024 Best Book Award - Law Category

Now in its sixth edition, American Bar Association’s best-selling anticorruption handbook, The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Handbook is the preferred reference guide for both “law students beginning their careers and the seasoned legal practitioner as a critical resource to assist them in advising their clients." –Eileen Kamerick, Adjunct Professor of Law, The University of Chicago Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, and the University of Iowa College of Law

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Handbook, Sixth Edition, imparts practical guidance on anticorruption compliance and investigations. It addresses the elements of the statute's anti-bribery and accounting provisions as well as the potential penalties.

This volume reviews in detail common transactions and situations, presenting anticorruption risks to multinational corporations; in particular, the use of third-party intermediaries and representatives who have been key to almost 90 percent of all DOJ and SEC FCPA resolutions.

The 2024 Sixth Edition updates important chapters on these subjects while expanding its treatment of key corporate issues. These include the fiduciary duties of officers and directors and the FCPA risks in mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures. New to the Sixth Edition is a final chapter discussing in depth the six criminal FCPA trials of individual defendants during the previous seven years, together with analysis of the government's theories, the defense challenges and strategies, and the sentences sought by the DOJ and imposed by five district courts.

Peter P. Tomczak (peter.tomczak@bakermckenzie.com) is a Partner in the Chicago office of Baker & McKenzie LLP. He serves as the firm’s Co-Chair, Global Investigations, Compliance and Ethics. He is a member of the Steering Committee of the Firm’s Global Dispute Resolution practice, and also serves on the Firm’s Global Professional Responsibility and Practice Committee. He previously served as Chair of the Firm’s North America Litigation and Government Enforcement Practice Group, and on the Steering Committee of the Firm’s Global Industrials, Manufacturing and Transportation Industry Practice Group.

Mr. Tomczak has conducted sensitive internal investigations, in particular those arising under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, for multinational corporations in more than thirty countries. He regularly counsels clients and their boards of directors on corporate compliance, ESG and corporate governance matters. In addition, he has advised clients on anticorruption issues in all phases of merger and acquisition transactions, and has provided anticorruption training to boards of directors and senior executives. Mr. Tomczak also has successfully represented clients in litigating complex business disputes, primarily those among corporate stakeholders and involving alleged breaches of fiduciary duties. He has significant experience with claims for emergency injunctive relief and other extraordinary equitable remedies. He has represented multinational companies and executives involved in sensitive compliance matters in more than thirty countries, including among others Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, Turks & Caicos, Türkiye, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Mr. Tomczak has particular experience in representing and counseling pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, and software and other information technology companies, in regard to anticorruption compliance and bribery investigations. He has advised clients in other industries as well, including among others the manufacturing, industrial, chemical, nuclear medicine, aviation, insurance, and oil and gas industries.

Mr. Tomczak regularly publishes and presents on anticorruption, compliance, and corporate governance issues. Among others, in 2010, he co-authored with Robert W. Tarun the Introductory Essay for the 25th Anniversary White Collar Crime Survey―A Proposal for a United States Department of Justice Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Leniency Policy, 47 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 153 (2010). He also has authored among other publications: Chapters 4 (Directors’ Duties Regarding Sustainability and ESG) & 17 (Litigation and Risk Management) in Esg In The Boardroom: A Guidebook For Directors (ABA Book Publishing 2022); Practical Guidance for Directors Overseeing

Corporate Investigations, NACD Board Leaders’ Blog (2018, with Richard Dean); and multiple papers addressing FCPA issues in the transactional context that were presented at the American Bar Association’s National Institutes on White Collar Crime. Mr. Tomczak previously served as Co-Vice Chair of the Task Force of the ABA Section of Business Law Corporate Governance Committee on Delineation of Governance Roles and Responsibilities, which published its Report in 65 Bus. Law. 107 (2009). He was named to National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) Directorship 100―Governance Professionals and Institutions (2018–2022), and received the Economics Outstanding Young Alumni Award from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2021). He is a member of the Wong Sun Society of San Francisco.

Mr. Tomczak clerked for Vice Chancellor John W. Noble of the Delaware Court of Chancery. He received his Juris Doctorate degree, Magna Cum Laude, Order of the Coif, from the University of Michigan Law School, and was awarded the Daniel H. Grady Prize for graduating first in his law school class. In addition, he received the Emmett E. Eagan Award for excellence in the study of corporate law, the Class of 1908 Scholarship Award for having the highest scholastic average in his second-year law school class, and the Maurice Weigle Scholarship Award for having the highest scholastic average in his first-year law school class. He also served as Articles Editor for the Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review. Mr. Tomczak received his Bachelor of Science in Economics, with Highest Honors, from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and was named to the Bronze Tablet, which is the University’s highest honor for graduating students.