In order to provide an overview for busy in-house counsel and compliance professionals, we summarize below some of the most important international anti-corruption developments from the past month, with links to primary resources. This month we ask: What should we make of the Department of Justice’s new FCPA Pilot Program? Who pleaded guilty to FCPA charges, and what FCPA corporate case was resolved? What did the D.C. Circuit say about how much oversight judges have when it comes to deferred prosecution agreements? What does the Canadian Supreme Court think of the World Bank’s immunity argument? The answers to these questions and more are here in our April 2016 Top Ten list:

1. DOJ Announces Pilot Program to Encourage FCPA Self-Reporting. On April 5, 2016, Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell announced a new “FCPA pilot program” intended to motivate companies to voluntarily self-disclose FCPA-related misconduct. In making the announcement, AAG Caldwell disclosed a newly released policy document authored by Fraud Section Chief Andrew Weissmann titled “The Fraud Section’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Enforcement Plan and Guidance.” According to the Guidance, during a one-year pilot period effective April 5, 2016, companies that voluntarily disclose improper conduct to the Fraud Section’s FCPA Unit, fully cooperate in accordance with the Principles of Federal Prosecution of Business Organizations and the Yates Memo, appropriately remediate, and otherwise pass muster under the “stringent requirements” of the pilot program may receive up to a 50% reduction off the bottom of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines fine range and generally will not be required to retain an independent compliance monitor. Companies that do not voluntarily disclose improper conduct, but that do “fully cooperate[] and timely and appropriately remediate[],” will be accorded “at most a 25% reduction off the bottom of the Sentencing Guidelines fine range.” As we discussed in much more detail in our client alert, DOJ deserves credit for recognizing that the lack of clarity and certainty in the self-disclosure process can disincentivize even the most ethical companies from self-reporting potential misconduct. However, while bright-line rules provide certainty, they are not always consistent with DOJ’s understandable need to resolve each case based on its own facts and circumstances. The tension between these two competing policies—certainty and flexibility—resulted in a policy that looks very much like existing practice and will likely only have a marginal impact on any given company’s overall approach to voluntary disclosure. On the other hand, the Guidance’s new “disgorgement” policy may reduce any potential benefit from the policy and may further discourage selfdisclosure. Interestingly, it appears that a bolder version of the Pilot Program was initially considered but ultimately rejected as being overly favorable to companies.