{"id":111,"date":"2016-06-30T10:23:52","date_gmt":"2016-06-30T14:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/governmentcontractslaw\/?p=111"},"modified":"2016-06-30T12:36:10","modified_gmt":"2016-06-30T16:36:10","slug":"mcdonnell-decision-and-the-fcpa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/governmentcontractslaw\/2016\/06\/30\/mcdonnell-decision-and-the-fcpa\/","title":{"rendered":"McDonnell Decision and the FCPA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On June 27, 2016, in the last decision of the 2015\u20132016 term, the U.S. Supreme Court, in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/15pdf\/15-474_ljgm.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">McDonnell v. United States<\/a><\/em>, No. 15-474, narrowed the type and character of \u201cofficial acts\u201d that could underpin corruption charges against a public official. Federal prosecutors contended that former Governor of Virginia Robert McDonnell was guilty of a variety of corruption charges for accepting $175,000 worth of loans, gifts and other benefits in exchange for what the government termed \u201cofficial acts.\u201d After being found guilty by a jury, McDonnell\u2019s conviction was upheld on appeal, but ultimately reversed by the Supreme Court, which held that the jury instructions too broadly defined \u201cofficial acts\u201d as \u201cacts that a public official customarily performs.\u201d Instead, the Court concluded that it is impermissible to accept payment only for an \u201cofficial act,\u201d which it defined as a \u201cdecision or action\u201d on a pending \u201cquestion, matter, cause, suit, proceeding, or controversy,\u201d and not a routine political action, such as setting up a meeting, call or event. The Court\u2019s decision provides much-needed clarification to politicians and stakeholders alike regarding the scope of federal anti-corruption law.<\/p>\n<p>To read the full text of the <em>Alert<\/em>, please visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/alerts\/mcdonnell_decision_and_the_fcpa_0616.html\" target=\"_blank\">www.duanemorris.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On June 27, 2016, in the last decision of the 2015\u20132016 term, the U.S. Supreme Court, in McDonnell v. United States, No. 15-474, narrowed the type and character of \u201cofficial acts\u201d that could underpin corruption charges against a public official. Federal prosecutors contended that former Governor of Virginia Robert McDonnell was guilty of a variety &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/governmentcontractslaw\/2016\/06\/30\/mcdonnell-decision-and-the-fcpa\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;McDonnell Decision and the FCPA&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[176,183,6,182,177,180,181,178],"ppma_author":[211],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-christopher-grohman","tag-corruption","tag-government","tag-money","tag-official-acts","tag-politician","tag-public-official","tag-supreme-court"],"authors":[{"term_id":211,"user_id":6,"is_guest":0,"slug":"duanemorris3","display_name":"Duane Morris","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/843ff6e7a8fe5fc92109b47a45f34b6cf0ea499e6e788db23456c838b0ae6747?s=96&d=blank&r=g","author_category":"1","last_name":"Sullivan","first_name":"Margaret","job_title":"","user_url":"http:\/\/www.duanemorris.com","description":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\">Visit the Duane Morris website.<\/a>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/governmentcontractslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/governmentcontractslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/governmentcontractslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/governmentcontractslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/governmentcontractslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/governmentcontractslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/governmentcontractslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/governmentcontractslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/governmentcontractslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/governmentcontractslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}