FCPA and the Sapin 2 law (anti-corruption)
The 1977 US law against bribery of foreign public officials, enforced widely outside the United States, and the 2016 French law that created the French Anti-Corruption Agency and corporate plea agreements.
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 prohibits companies and persons subject to US law from bribing a foreign public official to win business. Its extraterritorial reach, based on a company's US listing, use of the dollar or of a US server, allowed US authorities to prosecute many European companies, including several French groups fined hundreds of millions of dollars in the 2010s. In response, and so that French companies would be judged in France, law no. 2016-1691 of 9 December 2016, known as Sapin 2, created the French Anti-Corruption Agency, required large companies to run a compliance program, risk mapping, code of conduct, third-party due diligence, internal whistleblowing, and introduced the judicial public interest agreement, which lets a company pay a fine without admitting guilt. In 2025, the US administration paused and then refocused FCPA enforcement. For insurance, corruption is a political risk as much as a legal one: it often arises in countries where public contracts are won through intermediaries. Directors' liability policies cover investigation and defense costs, but not fines, and the intentional acts exclusion applies once wrongdoing is established.
Textbook case: a French engineering group discovers that an intermediary paid for a contract in Africa has paid bribes. It self-reports to the national financial prosecutor and concludes a judicial public interest agreement; its directors' liability policy reimburses 4 million euros of internal investigation and defense costs, but not the fine.
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