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Due Process

Court Allows Discovery as to Vindictive Prosecution Defense by Smartmatic's Parent Company

"It may well be that no fire will be discovered under all the smoke, but there is enough smoke here ... to warrant the unusual step of ... find[ing] out how this unusual prosecution came about."

Eugene Volokh | 11.7.2026 12:25 PM

From U.S. v. SGO Corp. Ltd., decided Tuesday by Judge Kathleen Williams (S.D. Fla.):

For a six-year period, the Government investigated SGO executives for their role in a money laundering and bribery scheme related to the May, 2016 Philippine elections. The investigation culminated in a six-count indictment ("First Indictment"), returned on August 8, 2024, which charged [executives of] SGO and Smartmatic … [with] conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA") (Count I); violations of the FCPA (Count II); conspiracy to commit money laundering (Count III); and international laundering of monetary instruments (Counts IV, V, and VI). The FCPA "prohibits officers of a domestic concern from making corrupt payments to a 'foreign official.'"

SGO was not charged. In fact, SGO had been cooperating with the Government since 2021, years before the First Indictment was returned. {Although the Parties may dispute the breadth and quality of SGO's efforts to cooperate, there is no question that SGO and the Government were engaged in discussions and the exchange of documents related to this matter.}

The original trial date was set for October 7, 2024 … [but was eventually reset for 2026]….

As the court notes, the Trump Administration was........

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