The DOJ still wants to begin a trial of former Cognizant executives it accuses of conspiring to bribe Indian officials on 3 March despite an executive order from US President Donald Trump pausing FCPA enforcement for six months.
“Following its review of this case pursuant to the Executive Order, the Government can report that the Government intends to proceed to trial on March 3, 2025,” prosecutors from the FCPA Unit wrote in a 21 February letter.
A New Jersey federal judge asked prosecutors to clarify their plans one day after the order was issued on 10 February. In the order, Trump directed US Attorney General Pam Bondi to “cease initiation of any new FCPA investigations or enforcement actions” unless she determines that an exception should be made. The order also asked her to review all existing FCPA enforcement and take “appropriate remedial action” to “restore proper bounds” to enforcement of the statute.
The order directed Bondi to issue guidelines on how the DOJ should approach foreign bribery enforcement after the six-month pause, noting that the halt could be extended.
In a letter filed on the same day as the DOJ’s response, defence counsel for the former Cognizant executives said they opposed a proposed order by the government to proceed with trial on 3 March. The defence lawyers took issue with language in the order that would "seek to have the Court find, implicitly or otherwise, that the government has complied with" Trump's executive order.
"[W]e believe the Court lacks necessary information to enter such an Order," they said.
Trump's order to pause FCPA enforcement came just days after Bondi issued a memo directing the FCPA Unit to prioritise cases involving foreign bribery that facilitates activities by cartels, terrorist organisations and other criminal groups.
The directives have left members of the FCPA bar scratching their heads over the future of US foreign bribery enforcement.
Defendants Gordon Coburn and Steven Schwartz are due to face FCPA and related conspiracy and recordkeeping charges for their alleged involvement in a scheme to allow an Indian construction company to pay and conceal bribes to get government permission for office campus construction projects.
The defendants were indicted in 2019 after Cognizant settled SEC charges for $25 million and received a declination with a $3 million disgorgement order from the DOJ. Coburn formerly served as Cognizant’s president and Schwartz as its legal officer. They both left the company in 2016.
Their trials have already been pushed back several times, most recently in August after prosecutors cited delays in obtaining witness testimony from India.
Lawyers for Coburn and Schwartz did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This story was updated to clarify that defence counsel asked the judge to reject a proposed order indicating the government intends to proceed with the trial as scheduled because the lawyers objected to language regarding the DOJ's compliance with Trump's executive order.
Counsel to Gordon Coburn
Jones Day
Partner Hank Walther in Washington DC, and partners Henry Klehm, James Loonam, Sarah Efronson and associates Abigael Bosch and Alexander Gonzalez in New York
Krieger Lewin
Partner Nicholas Lewin in New York
Counsel to Steven Schwartz
Paul Weiss
Partners Theodore Wells, Roberto Finzi, Justin Lerer and associate Kyle Sieber in New York
Gibbons
Partners Anne Collart, Lawrence Lustberg and John Haggerty in Newark
Bohrer
Partner Jeremy Bohrer and counsel Jonathan Jason in New York
For the DOJ
Assistant US attorneys Jonathan Fayer and Rachelle Navarro in Newark, trial attorneys Connor Mullin and Paul Ream and acting FCPA unit principal assistant chief Keith Edelman
This article was first published in Lexology Pro's sister title Global Investigations Review (GIR) on 21 February 2025.