Are You a Foreign Agent? [More with McGlinchey, Ep. 21
Aggressive enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) continued last year, and that trend shows no signs of receding in 2024. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2023 filed its first affirmative civil...more
With recent high-profile prosecutions continuing to draw attention to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and related political laws, and a number of notable announcements by Department of Justice (DOJ) officials at a...more
On October 3, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) FARA Unit published a number of new advisory opinions (AOs) offering guidance and further insight on the Department’s interpretation of certain FARA registration triggers and...more
CFIUS has the authority to review any transaction that could result in foreign control of a US business, certain non-controlling investments and certain real estate transactions. This includes mergers, acquisitions, and joint...more
When considering who must register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA” or “the Act”), one normally thinks of individuals, law firms, or marketing firms, the typical kinds of agents that must register for...more
On October 12, 2022, a federal district judge in the District of Columbia, Judge James E. Boasberg, dismissed a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) civil complaint against businessman Steve Wynn, which sought to compel Wynn to...more
The U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) determined approach to identifying violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) shows no signs of slowing down. An inadvertently disclosed warrant revealed that John Allen, a...more
Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a civil enforcement action seeking to compel U.S. businessman Steve Wynn to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) as an agent of the Chinese...more
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), 22 U.S.C. § 611 et seq., is a federal statute passed in 1938 that was originally intended to combat the dissemination of Nazi and Communist propaganda within the United States. FARA...more
Following its efforts in recent years to enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (22 U.S.C. 611 et seq. (FARA)) more rigorously and transparently, for the first time in nearly 15 years, the U.S. Department of...more
In October 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed charges against eight individuals accused of operating “repatriation squads” in the United States on behalf of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It announced...more
Insider threats continue to be pervasive and real. Last month’s indictment of a Russian national accused of conspiring to recruit a U.S. company’s employee to carry out a cyberattack is a sharp reminder of that. According to...more
Federal authorities have recently described the threat of economic espionage from foreign entities as one of the greatest threats to the economic vitality of the United States, and this has led to an increase in...more
In the wake of a global law firm entering into a multimillion-dollar settlement for failing to register as an agent of a foreign principal under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA or the act), other law firms have...more
As discussed in a previous alert dated June 18, 2019, the U.S. Department of Education (the “Department”) over the last year increased its scrutiny of postsecondary institutions’ contracts with, and gifts from, foreign...more
With the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) giving increased attention to Foreign Agent Registration Act (“FARA”) enforcement, companies that have international business operations or otherwise deal with foreign governments and...more
By now, you have skimmed through the proposed FIRRMA regulations issued on September 17 2019, and you have very likely read a dozen summaries of those regulations (with titles like “New Proposed CFIUS Regulations Published”...more
On June 25, the Preventing Adversaries Internationally from Disbursing Advertising Dollars Act (the bill) was introduced in the U.S. Senate. The bill proposes expansions of existing prohibitions on political activities of...more
U.S. is increasing its enforcement to monitor foreign interests. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced increased enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires public...more
On March 6, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers announced that the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has designated a new deputy chief to lead the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) unit and that...more
After decades in which the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) received relatively little attention, a confluence of recent events has given the statute newfound prominence. Together, these developments compound the...more