The United States has dominated global anti-corruption enforcement for decades, particularly through its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which bans U.S. companies from bribing officials overseas. European countries have historically played a secondary role in anti-corruption enforcement, with European governments such as Germany and France “generally uninterested” and at times “firmly opposed” to American efforts to expand international anti-corruption norms. However, the Trump administration has significantly backtracked on the U.S. commitment to anti-corruption enforcement, along with other changes in the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, the primary hubs for FCPA implementation. Consequently, some observers have pointed to Europe as a potential replacement for American dominance in global anti-corruption enforcement.
Europe is rapidly narrowing some of the legal and institutional gaps left by the United States, but whether it can replicate the enforcement capacity and global reach that made the FCPA regime so consequential remains much less clear. Several developments in Europe over the past year reflect a broader shift from historic reluctance toward a more favorable view of anti-corruption enforcement. At the same time, European countries face significant resource and geopolitical constraints that could limit Europe’s ability to fill the emerging enforcement gap, including lack of assistance — or even resistance — from the United States.
A Brief History of Global Anti-Corruption Enforcement
Beginning in the 1970s, the United States has been an unparalleled leader in establishing and enforcing international anti-corruption norms, with the FCPA serving as a blueprint for the Anti-Bribery Convention of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and influencing national statutes prohibiting foreign bribery in the U.K., France, and other European countries. In fact, several European legislative reforms that advanced anti-corruption norms resulted from attempts to counter U.S. investigations and sanctions imposed on European firms, as European countries were concerned about infringements on their sovereignty — France’s Sapin II, a leading anti-corruption statute, was one example.
While European commitment to anti-corruption enforcement has grown over the past two decades, especially through increased enforcement by the U.K., France, and Switzerland, the United States has continued to dominate the global anti-corruption sphere, imposing more enforcement actions than the rest of the world combined.
However, under the current U.S. administration, enforcement priorities have shifted, and the United States has significantly overhauled its relationship to anti-corruption norms. The United States placed a temporary moratorium on FCPA prosecutions to re-examine its enforcement priorities, subsequently introducing a new policy aimed at concentrating on cases where FCPA offenses are related to transnational criminal organizations, harm to U.S. companies, national-security interests, and serious misconduct. Nowadays, the future of the FCPA — and more broadly the U.S. role in upholding global anti-corruption norms — remains uncertain.
Europe Stepping Up
Amid the U.S. retreat, the European Union and European countries have taken several steps to assert an increased role in global anti-corruption enforcement. Some of these steps continue long-term trends in Europe’s growing focus on enforcing and punishing transnational corrupt behavior, while others were taken after the vacuum created by the U.S. policy shift.
EU Directive
Perhaps the most noticeable change has been the adoption of EU Directive 2026/1021, which was enacted in April 2026. The directive seeks to reduce longstanding differences among member states’ anti-corruption regimes by establishing minimum EU-wide rules governing corruption offenses, corporate liability, sanctions, jurisdiction, prevention, and enforcement. Among other things, it requires member states to criminalize public- and private-sector bribery, as well as other corruption-related conduct, and establishes a framework for holding corporations liable when corruption is committed for their benefit by corporate leaders or is enabled by inadequate supervision or control. It does not, however, impose a general FCPA-style internal-controls requirement on corporations.
The directive is particularly significant for cross-border enforcement. Member states must establish jurisdiction when corrupt conduct occurs wholly or partly within their territory or is committed by one of their nationals, and may extend jurisdiction to certain offenses committed abroad that benefit corporations established or doing business in their territory. It also seeks to strengthen the enforcement capacity itself: member states must maintain bodies or organizational units responsible for preventing and repressing corruption, provide them with resources and powers sufficient to perform their functions, and ensure that authorities have appropriate investigative tools and training.
Although the draft directive was unveiled in 2023, prior to the current change in U.S. policy, it is likely to help position Europe as a dominant force in the emerging global anti-corruption sphere. The directive requires member states to adopt the required changes by 2028, and several states have already proposed amendments to their domestic anti-corruption laws and regulations. For example, Germany recently introduced a draft bill that would increase the maximum corporate fines, aligning with the directive’s penalty standards, and create a structured process for prosecutors to consider when determining the appropriate size of the sanction.
Capacity Building
Legal authority alone, however, cannot substitute for the resources and operational capacity necessary to investigate complex transnational corruption. European authorities have begun addressing that problem through both additional domestic investment and greater cross-border cooperation. For example, the UK government provided the Serious Fraud Office an additional £9.3 million for fiscal year 2025–26 to strengthen its capacity to combat complex fraud, bribery, and corruption, including through enhanced asset-recovery capabilities and upgraded disclosure technology, increasing the total SFO budget to almost £100 million. Nevertheless, a resource gap is likely to remain between any single European state and U.S. enforcement at its peak.
Accordingly, in March 2025, the U.K., France, and Switzerland, the leading European countries in anti-corruption enforcement, announced the formation of the International Anti-Corruption Prosecution Taskforce. The Taskforce aims to increase European and global cooperation in anti-corruption enforcement, primarily by cooperation through regular strategic exchanges, proposals for cooperation on cases, sharing of best practices, and greater operational collaboration. In addition, the three Taskforce countries have some of the most expansive jurisdictional rules for anti-corruption enforcement, allowing them to investigate multinational corporations that use European financial institutions. The Taskforce also invited other “like-minded” countries to join the group. The Taskforce thus represents one possible way for European authorities to expand their collective enforcement capacity without replicating the centralized resources historically concentrated within DOJ and the SEC, but its impact on global anti-corruption enforcement will unfold in the coming years.
The Challenges Ahead
Although Europe is rapidly closing the legal and institutional gap in anti-corruption enforcement, whether it can close the enforcement-capacity gap remains much less clear.
Continued Need for Additional Resources
International corruption investigations tend to be expensive and time-consuming, and require significant personnel. The United States historically devoted substantial specialized resources to foreign bribery enforcement, including dedicated FCPA units at both DOJ and the SEC, totaling more than 70 dedicated prosecutors at its peak. Few, if any, foreign enforcement agencies have developed comparable dedicated structures, although differences in how agencies organize and report their personnel make precise cross-country comparisons difficult. The recent investment by the SFO may help to close this gap, but it is unclear if it will include an influx of the necessary personnel.
One potential strategy to overcome this resource obstacle is increased cooperation between European and non-European enforcement authorities. The new European Task Force is one way, but cooperation beyond Europe may be even more important. Specifically, transnational corruption by Western corporations often takes place on the soil of Global South countries. Accordingly, European agencies have pursued, to a limited extent, cooperation in investigations and enforcement actions with jurisdictions where the corrupt conduct took place, provided that they are willing and able to participate in anti-corruption efforts. These Global South jurisdictions often have better and more direct access to evidence regarding the corrupt conduct, while the European enforcement agency may have better resources and expertise in investigating transnational corruption. Europe’s ability to fill the emerging enforcement gap may therefore depend as much on building partnerships beyond Europe as on strengthening its own enforcement capacity.
Another benefit of cooperation that Europe could point to is the prospect of sharing proceeds from enforcement actions between governments. Thus, the fine levied for corrupt conduct goes not only to the coffers of the European enforcement authority, but also to the country on whose soil the corrupt conduct took place and whose citizens are the actual victims of the crime. Some FCPA investigations have implemented this model of cooperation.
Political Tensions with the U.S. and China
Beyond resource constraints and cooperation in enforcement, growing European enforcement of anti-corruption norms could create political tensions with foreign governments, particularly the United States and China. As noted, one of the original motivations for establishing anti-corruption frameworks in Europe has been to fend off American enforcement efforts. Now that the tables are turning as European countries expand anti-corruption enforcement, the opposite dynamic might occur, where American companies are at risk of anti-corruption sanctions imposed by European jurisdictions.
This cross-jurisdictional dynamic is especially common in global corruption, in which multinational corporations carry out corruption schemes that implicate several countries and could also create political tensions. U.S. companies facing European enforcement might seek assistance from the U.S. government, just as companies have challenged other forms of foreign regulation. Although recent disputes have arisen outside the anti-corruption context, the Trump administration has expressly indicated a willingness to respond to foreign fines, penalties, taxes, and regulations that it views as discriminatory or harmful to American companies. That posture raises the possibility of similar tensions if European authorities increasingly pursue corruption cases involving U.S. companies.
This threat is underscored by the unique political context of transnational corruption perpetrated by American companies. The administration has criticized prior FCPA enforcement as imposing excessive burdens on American companies and temporarily paused FCPA enforcement in 2025 while reconsidering its enforcement policy. At the same time, however, there remains significant bipartisan support for anti-corruption bills. Most notably, Congress enacted the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA) in 2023 with bipartisan and bicameral support. FEPA complements the FCPA’s prohibition on the “supply side” of bribery by criminalizing certain demands for, and acceptance of, bribes by foreign officials — a reform expressly framed in part as protecting American companies from competitors willing to pay bribes and from foreign officials who demand them. These competing interests suggest that U.S. resistance to European enforcement is not inevitable, but that tensions may arise where European anti-corruption actions against American companies are perceived in the United States as imposing disproportionate costs or competitive disadvantages.
China illustrates a different obstacle: European enforcement may depend on cooperation from other countries, yet those other countries may have little incentive to facilitate foreign investigations occurring within their territory. A large share of FCPA enforcement has traditionally targeted Chinese-related enterprises; in particular, Chinese subsidiaries of American and European companies have often been accused of bribing Chinese officials to secure contracts and business advantages. While the active cooperation of Chinese enforcement authorities with American FCPA investigations has been limited and inconsistent, China has generally not publicly opposed investigations or enforcement actions, and the U.S. has brought a number of China-related FCPA resolutions.
Thus, it remains to be seen whether European authorities can overcome those obstacles as effectively as U.S. authorities historically have. The United States’ extensive enforcement resources, broad jurisdictional reach, and leverage over multinational companies allowed it to pursue numerous China-related FCPA cases despite limited Chinese cooperation. Individual European enforcement authorities may have less capacity to do so. Europe’s ability to pursue such cases may therefore provide an important test of whether its emerging enforcement model can replicate not simply the legal reach, but also the practical effectiveness, of the U.S.-centered system.
Conclusion
The European response to changes in U.S. anti-corruption policy makes the future of global anti-corruption enforcement seem less bleak than perhaps initially thought. With several European countries and the EU demonstrating persistent commitment to upholding anti-corruption norms, Europe’s relationship to transnational corruption has come a long way from the historic reluctance to join American enforcement efforts. Nevertheless, several challenges identified here call into question European states’ ability to enforce anti-corruption norms without American involvement. The emerging system may therefore look less like a transfer of anti-corruption leadership from the United States to Europe than a transition from a U.S.-centered enforcement model to a more fragmented and cooperative one. Whether that model can produce the same deterrent effect as concentrated U.S. enforcement remains an open question.
