It was another record-breaking year for the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, with the SEC and Justice Department “pushing the edges as far as what’s permitted and not permitted under the statute,” according to the co-author of a report released this week. The DOJ has also made clear its willingness to go after individual defendants long after a case has been settled against the parent company.

A federal judge has thrown out the conspiracy charge against six defendants in a foreign bribery case and acquitted one businessman outright. The decision is a blow for the DOJ in the high-profile case, touted as the largest-ever prosecution of individuals under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Frederic Bourke Jr.’s attack on his conviction for a conspiracy to bribe officials to gain control of Azerbaijan’s state-run oil company was rejected Wednesday by the 2nd Circuit, which affirmed the entrepreneur’s conviction of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Travel Act.

Prosecutors in a disastrous Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case have agreed to toss the conviction of a third individual defendant in light of a federal judge’s dismissal of related charges against two co-defendants for prosecutorial misconduct.

The Justice Department has bolstered its defense of charges against two Thai government officials linked to a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case against a Hollywood producer and his wife, insisting that the defendants, not prosecutors, have created a “novel interpretation” of the money laundering statute.