# Refunds for Tariffs & Dropping FIFA Convictions

An episode of [Bloomberg Law](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/277975394), 17 Mar 2026, 35 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/7c892d84-801f-4c0b-b0e9-ae2b0012ff5f/f33dc626-0daf-424a-9ce5-b41000076002/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=91224201-26a6-429d-ac3c-ae2b0012ff6d

Timothy Brightbill, a partner and co-chair of the international trade practice at Wiley Rein, discusses lawsuits over refunds for the $170 billion collected in tariffs. Then Bloomberg legal reporter Patricia Hurtado, discusses federal prosecutors trying to drop criminal convictions for bribery reached by a jury in FIFA cases. June Grasso hosts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June grosseol from Bloomberg Radio.
[0:08] Speaker 1: President Trump was highly critical of a Supreme Court's decision
[0:13] Speaker 1: last month striking down the tariffs he imposed under the
[0:16] Speaker 1: International Emergency Economic Powers Act or AIPA. Wouldn't you think
[0:21] Speaker 1: they would have put one sentence in there saying that.
[0:24] Speaker 2: Keep the money or don't keep the money? Right, I
[0:27] Speaker 2: guess it has to get litigated for the next two years.
[0:30] Speaker 1: The decision was silent on the question of refunds. It's
[0:35] Speaker 1: up to the US Court of International Trade to determine
[0:38] Speaker 1: what refunds will be available for the almost one hundred
[0:42] Speaker 1: and seventy billion dollars in global tariffs collected, how they'll
[0:46] Speaker 1: be doled out and to whom. And Even though the
[0:50] Speaker 1: administration says its web based portal to handle refund requests
[0:55] Speaker 1: is about seventy percent complete, more than two thousand lawsuits
[0:59] Speaker 1: have already been filed by companies seeking refunds, and a
[1:04] Speaker 1: new wrinkle last week, as a Costco member sued the retailer,
[1:08] Speaker 1: saying it should reimburse all customers who paid higher prices
[1:13] Speaker 1: on its products because of Trump's tariffs. It's one of
[1:16] Speaker 1: at least five proposed class action cases identified by Bloomberg
[1:21] Speaker 1: News where a customer is suing a company to get
[1:24] Speaker 1: tariff refunds. My guest is Timothy Bright Bell, a partner
[1:28] Speaker 1: and co chair of the International Trade practice at Wiley
[1:32] Speaker 1: Rhyin Tim the Supreme Court didn't give any specifics at
[1:36] Speaker 1: all about refunds, but Judge Eaton of the Court of
[1:40] Speaker 1: International Trade has said that every single cent of tariffs
[1:45] Speaker 1: collected under AIPA has to be returned. Has the Trump
[1:49] Speaker 1: administration agreed with that?
[1:52] Speaker 2: So the Justice Department has agreed, and Customs and Border
[1:57] Speaker 2: Protection has agreed. It's not entirely clear that the White
[2:02] Speaker 2: House has agreed so, but the way this is proceeding
[2:06] Speaker 2: now in front of Judge Eaton, when he said all
[2:11] Speaker 2: importers of record whose entries were subject to IEPA duties
[2:14] Speaker 2: are entitled to the benefit of the learning resources decision,
[2:19] Speaker 2: that was very clear in the order that was issued
[2:21] Speaker 2: on March fourth. Since then, Customs and Border Protection gave
[2:27] Speaker 2: a response asking for forty five days to implement functionality
[2:33] Speaker 2: for its automated service called ACE. So Judge Eaton, who
[2:39] Speaker 2: originally ordered immediate refunds, rescinded that order. He then asked
[2:45] Speaker 2: for weekly status reports, so Customs and Border Protection has
[2:48] Speaker 2: been giving him updates. There was one on March twelfth,
[2:52] Speaker 2: there will be another one on March nineteenth, So the
[2:55] Speaker 2: process is moving along. Customs is building the refund system
[3:00] Speaker 2: that will be needed, and hopefully if that is created,
[3:03] Speaker 2: it will be less messy than otherwise could be, so.
[3:07] Speaker 1: The whole process will be automated.
[3:10] Speaker 2: That's the intent. Yes, so Customs, when it collects duties,
[3:15] Speaker 2: has an automated system for that that brokers and others
[3:19] Speaker 2: can access. Again, this ACE system, and so if you
[3:24] Speaker 2: can re engineer that, you could potentially provide refunds in
[3:29] Speaker 2: a quick and efficient and organized way, which would be
[3:33] Speaker 2: ideal and that would potentially make everyone's lives easier. But again,
[3:38] Speaker 2: the system is still being built. We don't know for
[3:40] Speaker 2: sure what challenges or delays there might be in that,
[3:43] Speaker 2: but so far, at least the system seems to be
[3:47] Speaker 2: under control or in progress.
[3:49] Speaker 1: So then if the system is in place and things
[3:52] Speaker 1: are going forward, why have thousands of companies still filed
[3:57] Speaker 1: lawsuits at the Court of International Trade.
[4:01] Speaker 2: Well, it's a great point, and even after Judge Eaton's decision,
[4:06] Speaker 2: additional companies have filed at the Court of International Trade,
[4:10] Speaker 2: including some of our clients. So, as I said, Customs
[4:15] Speaker 2: and the Justice Department seem committed to this, but there
[4:18] Speaker 2: hasn't been a one hundred percent commitment from the White
[4:23] Speaker 2: House and the administration about willingness to facilitate tariff refunds.
[4:27] Speaker 2: So there's some uncertainty whether the government will in fact
[4:33] Speaker 2: pay everyone that paid IEPA tariffs, or if a lawsuit
[4:37] Speaker 2: might be required for some reason. So I think that's
[4:40] Speaker 2: why some companies are filing. In addition, and this is
[4:43] Speaker 2: very much a company by company decision, but once the
[4:46] Speaker 2: Supreme Court decision was made, the potential political risk became
[4:50] Speaker 2: much lower, and the costs of filing are not particularly great.
[4:54] Speaker 2: So all of those things lead to companies continuing to
[4:58] Speaker 2: file lawsuits even while this refund automated process is being built.
[5:02] Speaker 1: So the judges said that all importers of record whose
[5:06] Speaker 1: entries were subject to IEPA duties are entitled to refunds,
[5:11] Speaker 1: regardless of whether or not they'd suit the government, but
[5:14] Speaker 1: the government will not pay refunds to the final commercial
[5:18] Speaker 1: customer or the individual consumer. But there are already at
[5:22] Speaker 1: least five proposed class actions by customers against retailers. So,
[5:29] Speaker 1: for example, last Wednesday, a Costco member sued the retailer
[5:34] Speaker 1: saying it should reimburse all customers who paid higher prices
[5:38] Speaker 1: on its products because of the tariffs. That looks like
[5:43] Speaker 1: a very messy lawsuit. I'm not even sure how they
[5:46] Speaker 1: would work out the numbers.
[5:47] Speaker 2: Yes, as predicted by Justice Barat, it could be very messy.
[5:51] Speaker 2: The importer of record, of course, is the entity that
[5:54] Speaker 2: pays the tariffs, and therefore it is the importer of
[5:58] Speaker 2: record who is entitled to the refunds. But that does
[6:02] Speaker 2: not address the question of customers who paid higher prices.
[6:05] Speaker 2: They are not necessarily entitled to those refunds directly. Now,
[6:10] Speaker 2: over the weekend, the US Trade Representative Jamison Greer said
[6:14] Speaker 2: that retailers should seek to pay customers refunds. But this
[6:21] Speaker 2: is why you've seen this new wrinkle of class action
[6:24] Speaker 2: suits being filed against Costco and FedEx and the maker
[6:28] Speaker 2: of raybands. These were some of the first companies to
[6:32] Speaker 2: file suit at the Court of International Trade for the
[6:35] Speaker 2: refunds in the first place. Now they are the first
[6:37] Speaker 2: targets for these consumer class actions.
[6:41] Speaker 1: How strong are those consumer class actions? It seems to
[6:45] Speaker 1: open up the courthouse doors to just about everybody in
[6:49] Speaker 1: the country who paid more because of the tariffs.
[6:52] Speaker 2: Yes, this could be a very messy process, and it
[6:56] Speaker 2: doesn't involve just consumers. Think about businesses that arrange with
[7:01] Speaker 2: another entity to have bought certain goods for manufacturing, paid
[7:05] Speaker 2: a higher price through the importer of record. Well, now
[7:08] Speaker 2: the importer of record gets the money back, and yet
[7:11] Speaker 2: it's the manufacturer who paid the importer of record who
[7:15] Speaker 2: should ultimately get the benefit of that. So it does
[7:19] Speaker 2: seem like this will be a messy process, and it
[7:22] Speaker 2: is very difficult to demonstrate what percent of AIPA tariffs
[7:27] Speaker 2: were passed on to customers were passed on to consumers
[7:30] Speaker 2: in a way that would allow for orderly refunds. So again,
[7:34] Speaker 2: it may be each company trying to sort this out
[7:37] Speaker 2: in some way or trying to make consumers whole to
[7:41] Speaker 2: the best extent possible.
[7:42] Speaker 1: Is there any precedent for a lawsuit like that, you know,
[7:46] Speaker 1: the customers against Costco, etc.
[7:49] Speaker 2: This is very unusual in the trade space. I am
[7:51] Speaker 2: not aware of similar sort of consumer class action suits
[7:56] Speaker 2: comparable to this. But then again, when you have more
[7:59] Speaker 2: than one hundred seven billion dollars at stake. You're going
[8:02] Speaker 2: to find lawyers and law firms that might have clients
[8:06] Speaker 2: who feel they are entitled to some share of that money.
[8:08] Speaker 1: Once this website is up, this portal, is it going
[8:12] Speaker 1: to go like one, two three, here's my documentation, put
[8:15] Speaker 1: it through or is it going to be more steps
[8:18] Speaker 1: after that?
[8:19] Speaker 2: It could be a relatively straightforward process. Again, since the
[8:22] Speaker 2: importer of record is the one who paid the duties
[8:26] Speaker 2: in the first place, and they have automated records through
[8:29] Speaker 2: customs of all of those entries, the dates that the
[8:33] Speaker 2: entries were made, and the amounts of money, including tariffs,
[8:37] Speaker 2: that were paid. That piece of it could be relatively
[8:40] Speaker 2: straightforward when it is just reversed back to refund the
[8:44] Speaker 2: tariffs to those importers of record. Anything beyond that it
[8:47] Speaker 2: gets much more complicated very quickly.
[8:50] Speaker 1: Now President Trump has moved to replace those IIPA tariffs,
[8:55] Speaker 1: and there are lawsuits already challenging those ten percent tariffs,
[9:00] Speaker 1: including by two dozen US states. Tell us about those lawsuits.
[9:06] Speaker 2: Yes, sure. So. This is section one twenty two of
[9:09] Speaker 2: the Trade Laws, which is a law intended to address
[9:12] Speaker 2: a balance of payments deficit, and it does allow the
[9:17] Speaker 2: President to impose tariffs of up to fifteen percent for
[9:21] Speaker 2: up to one hundred and fifty days, which would be
[9:23] Speaker 2: July twenty fourth. President Trump imposed ten percent tariffs. He
[9:27] Speaker 2: did threaten to go to fifteen percent, but so far
[9:31] Speaker 2: that has not happened yet in response quickly, You're correct.
[9:35] Speaker 2: There were lawsuits filed by twenty four states on March fifth,
[9:40] Speaker 2: and those have also were filed at the Court of
[9:43] Speaker 2: International Trade and will be heard by a three judge
[9:47] Speaker 2: panel that includes the Chief Justice, Mark Barnett, and the
[9:52] Speaker 2: process will move quickly. There is a motion for summary
[9:56] Speaker 2: judgment that was filed last Friday. There will be a
[9:59] Speaker 2: hearing on April tenth. So the lower courts appear to
[10:04] Speaker 2: want to move quickly, just as they did on the
[10:06] Speaker 2: Ayapa tariffs. Now that being said, the tariffs are only
[10:10] Speaker 2: in place until July twenty fourth, and it's certainly not
[10:14] Speaker 2: clear that you could get through all of the stages
[10:16] Speaker 2: of courts and appeals before that July twenty fourth, when
[10:20] Speaker 2: those tariffs would have to come on.
[10:22] Speaker 1: And what is the theory of the states and others
[10:25] Speaker 1: suing well.
[10:27] Speaker 2: The basic theory is that the United States does not
[10:30] Speaker 2: have a balance of payments deficit, that it has a
[10:33] Speaker 2: trade deficit, but balance of payments takes into account many
[10:37] Speaker 2: other factors, and when you look at those other factors,
[10:40] Speaker 2: in their view, the United States does not have a
[10:43] Speaker 2: balance of payments deficit or emergency that would justify these
[10:48] Speaker 2: types of teriffs.
[10:49] Speaker 1: Do you think that's a good argument.
[10:50] Speaker 2: By the way, personally, not speaking for my law firm
[10:54] Speaker 2: or my clients, I do think it is a credible argument.
[10:58] Speaker 2: And there is nearly a difference between trade deficits and
[11:02] Speaker 2: balance of payments deficits, and so I expect the court
[11:06] Speaker 2: is going to give the government a very hard time
[11:08] Speaker 2: at this quring on April.
[11:10] Speaker 1: Tenth, Coming up next on the Bloomberg Lawn Show, I'll
[11:13] Speaker 1: continue this conversation with trade attorney Tim Brightbell. President Trump
[11:18] Speaker 1: has tried to replace the AIPA tariffs. We'll talk about
[11:21] Speaker 1: some of the obstacles. I'm June Grosso and you're listening
[11:25] Speaker 1: to Bloomberg. President Donald Trump took to truth Social on
[11:33] Speaker 1: Sunday night, contending that he has an absolute right to
[11:37] Speaker 1: impose tariffs and criticizing the Supreme Court's decision striking down
[11:43] Speaker 1: the tariffs he imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers
[11:48] Speaker 1: Act or AIPA quote. The decision that mattered most to
[11:52] Speaker 1: me was tariffs. The court knew where I stood, how
[11:55] Speaker 1: badly I wanted this victory for our country, and instead
[11:59] Speaker 1: decided to potentially give away trillions of dollars to countries
[12:04] Speaker 1: and companies who have been taking advantage of the United
[12:07] Speaker 1: States for decades. I've been talking to trade expert Timothy
[12:11] Speaker 1: Brightbill of Willie Rhyan Jim tell us about the other
[12:15] Speaker 1: ways that Trump administration is trying to impose tariffs.
[12:20] Speaker 2: Well, and again, the goal is to have something in
[12:23] Speaker 2: place by the time that these Section one twenty two
[12:26] Speaker 2: tariffs would expire in late July. So last week, the
[12:30] Speaker 2: US Trade Representative announced two new sets of investigations under
[12:35] Speaker 2: section three oh one of the Trade Laws. Section three
[12:38] Speaker 2: oh one is the same law that the first Trump
[12:41] Speaker 2: administration used to impose tariffs on hundreds of billions of
[12:46] Speaker 2: dollars of goods coming in from China, and those tariffs
[12:49] Speaker 2: are still in place. So the two investigations that were
[12:53] Speaker 2: announced related first of all to structural overcapacity and overproduction,
[13:00] Speaker 2: and these are country specifics. So the US Trade Representative
[13:04] Speaker 2: is going to investigate structural excess capacity or production in
[13:09] Speaker 2: twenty seven countries, and then followed a day or two
[13:14] Speaker 2: later by another investigation into forced labor practices and in
[13:20] Speaker 2: particular what other countries are doing to prevent goods that
[13:23] Speaker 2: are made with forced labor from being imported or sent
[13:27] Speaker 2: onto the United States. That investigation is going to cover
[13:30] Speaker 2: sixty countries. There will be a very accelerated time frame
[13:34] Speaker 2: for these, so there will be comments that are due
[13:39] Speaker 2: starting almost now and due by April fifteenth, and then
[13:44] Speaker 2: the US Trade Representative will have hearings on the forced
[13:47] Speaker 2: labor issue beginning April twenty eighth, and on the structural
[13:51] Speaker 2: overcapacity beginning May fifth, So again we have an accelerated
[13:56] Speaker 2: time frame to try and have some of these investigations
[14:00] Speaker 2: included by the late July timeframe.
[14:03] Speaker 1: Are there other national security investigations underway?
[14:08] Speaker 2: Those are still underway as well a number of Section
[14:11] Speaker 2: two thirty two investigations. This was the tool in the
[14:14] Speaker 2: toolbox that has been used to impose tariffs on steel
[14:18] Speaker 2: and aluminum imports from a number of countries. Those tariffs
[14:22] Speaker 2: are still in place, but there are a variety of
[14:25] Speaker 2: ongoing Section two thirty two investigations covering everything from critical
[14:31] Speaker 2: minerals to pharmaceuticals, to solar polysilicon and related products like
[14:36] Speaker 2: solar cells and modules. So here the Commerce Department has
[14:41] Speaker 2: to do a report on whether imports are a threat
[14:43] Speaker 2: to national security. Then the president has ultimate discretion as
[14:47] Speaker 2: to what remedy to put in place.
[14:50] Speaker 1: When we were talking about the tariffs under AIBA, it
[14:53] Speaker 1: seemed as if most experts were saying, well, you know,
[14:56] Speaker 1: the president could use this, the president could use that,
[14:59] Speaker 1: but it seems like everything that the president is using
[15:02] Speaker 1: is under either investigation or some long term process.
[15:07] Speaker 2: Well, I would say that the courts have upheld generally
[15:12] Speaker 2: the president's ability to use these national security tariffs under
[15:16] Speaker 2: Section two thirty two, as well as the Section three
[15:19] Speaker 2: oh one tariffs depending on the situation. So there is
[15:22] Speaker 2: more discretion for the president in these circumstances, as opposed
[15:27] Speaker 2: to the IEPA tariffs, where Chief Justice Roberts concluded that
[15:32] Speaker 2: AIPA does not give the president this unbounded power to
[15:36] Speaker 2: unilaterally impose tariffs. In fact, he found that that view
[15:41] Speaker 2: would represent a transformative expansion of the president's authority over
[15:46] Speaker 2: tariff policy. So I think there are tools in the
[15:49] Speaker 2: toolbox that the courts have upheld doesn't mean they will
[15:53] Speaker 2: necessarily uphold the use of them in these situations.
[15:56] Speaker 1: Was there anything in that Supreme Court decision that you
[15:59] Speaker 1: found very surprising?
[16:02] Speaker 2: Well, I think the decision was in line with our
[16:05] Speaker 2: expectations as far as winning. We thought it would come out.
[16:07] Speaker 2: We thought it would be a five to four or
[16:09] Speaker 2: a six to three decision. I do think the Chief
[16:12] Speaker 2: Justice writing the main opinion and finding that all tariffs
[16:16] Speaker 2: under AEPA were illegal, not just some tariffs like maybe
[16:21] Speaker 2: the fent and all tariffs were legal, but the worldwide
[16:23] Speaker 2: reciprocal tariffs were not. And then I also thought it
[16:26] Speaker 2: was very interesting to see the debate on the Major
[16:29] Speaker 2: Questions doctrine, where Justice Gorsich made a full defense of
[16:34] Speaker 2: that doctrine and credited that for why he voted the
[16:37] Speaker 2: way he did, whereas Justice emy Cony Barrett basically said,
[16:42] Speaker 2: this is a textual issue. If you read the text
[16:44] Speaker 2: of AEPA, it does not allow tariffs, so you don't
[16:47] Speaker 2: have to get into the Major Questions doctrine.
[16:49] Speaker 1: President Trump recently said it's going to take five years
[16:52] Speaker 1: before all this refund stuff gets settled out. I mean,
[16:56] Speaker 1: what's your prediction or assessment of how long this is
[17:00] Speaker 1: going to take this process.
[17:02] Speaker 2: I think it will be a relatively orderly process for
[17:05] Speaker 2: getting money back to importers of record. But I agree
[17:09] Speaker 2: that if the goal is to get money back to consumers,
[17:12] Speaker 2: that will be longer and messier and could take quite
[17:16] Speaker 2: some time. But the building blocks of this custom system
[17:19] Speaker 2: seem to be moving along. We're keeping an eye on it,
[17:22] Speaker 2: the judge is keeping an eye on it. That part
[17:25] Speaker 2: seems manageable. It's really how to get the refunds back
[17:29] Speaker 2: to those who may have paid higher prices. That will
[17:32] Speaker 2: be a real challenge.
[17:33] Speaker 1: And Jim, what's your take on the big picture for trade?
[17:37] Speaker 2: The only thing I would say is that trade as
[17:40] Speaker 2: a whole remains chaotic. It remains among the top interests
[17:45] Speaker 2: of this president and this administration, and it is balanced
[17:48] Speaker 2: against the clear importance of affordability as a midterm election
[17:54] Speaker 2: year issue and a presidential election issue. So the balance
[17:58] Speaker 2: between tariffs and affordable will continue to define this debate
[18:03] Speaker 2: this year and running through to the presidential elections.
[18:06] Speaker 1: Always a pleasure to have you on, Tim, Thanks so much.
[18:09] Speaker 1: That's Timothy bright Bill, co chair of the International Trade
[18:13] Speaker 1: Practice at Willie Rhine.
[18:20] Speaker 3: Please welcome the very first winner of the FIFA Peace Prize,
[18:27] Speaker 3: theifth and forty seven President of the United States of America,
[18:31] Speaker 3: Mister Donald J. Trump.
[18:34] Speaker 4: Please thank you very much.
[18:40] Speaker 3: This is truly one of the great honors of my life.
[18:43] Speaker 1: You may remember back in December when FIFA President Gianni
[18:47] Speaker 1: Infantino awarded President Donald Trump the newly created FIFA Peace Prize.
[18:54] Speaker 1: Days later, the US Solicitor General ordered Brooklyn prosecutors to
[18:59] Speaker 1: drop two FIFA bribery convictions. In twenty twenty three, a
[19:04] Speaker 1: jury had handed down guilty verdicts against Erman Lopez and
[19:09] Speaker 1: the sports marketing group Full play By for money laundering
[19:13] Speaker 1: and wirefraud in connection with a scheme to bribe international
[19:17] Speaker 1: soccer officials for World Cup broadcasting rights. The highly unusual
[19:23] Speaker 1: move of prosecutors asking a judge to overturn guilty verdicts
[19:28] Speaker 1: could lead to the reversal of convictions in dozens of
[19:32] Speaker 1: other international soccer corruption cases, as well as the return
[19:37] Speaker 1: of hundreds of millions of dollars in recovered penalties. So
[19:40] Speaker 1: a Brooklyn federal judge is requiring the Justice Department to
[19:45] Speaker 1: provide a legal basis for dropping the long running international
[19:50] Speaker 1: soccer corruption case and explain the impact on related convictions
[19:55] Speaker 1: and penalties. Joining me is Bloomberg Legal reporter Patricia Hurtano,
[19:59] Speaker 1: who's been following this legal saga for years. Patty tell
[20:04] Speaker 1: us how we got to this point in this long
[20:06] Speaker 1: running investigation and prosecution.
[20:09] Speaker 5: Two federal juries convicted three sports marketing executives and soccer bosses.
[20:17] Speaker 5: They had different titles in a massive bribery scheme for
[20:21] Speaker 5: paying bribes or accepting bribes for sports marketing tied to
[20:26] Speaker 5: soccer and FIFA International Soccer. It was part of a
[20:29] Speaker 5: huge case unveiled by then Attorney General Loretta Lynch in
[20:33] Speaker 5: twenty fifteen too much fanfare and people may remember that
[20:38] Speaker 5: all the soccer barons were collected in a Barlac five
[20:41] Speaker 5: star hotel in Switzerland and the FBI and law enforcement
[20:46] Speaker 5: raided it and took them away in handcuffs. There was
[20:50] Speaker 5: a huge trial in twenty seventeen and resulted in the
[20:55] Speaker 5: conviction of two of those soccer officials, and then they appealed,
[21:01] Speaker 5: and then there was a trial in twenty twenty three
[21:04] Speaker 5: of former twenty first Century Fox executive and alleged bride
[21:10] Speaker 5: paying and receiving and a company called Full Play was
[21:13] Speaker 5: also convicted. So then goes the story the appeal of
[21:18] Speaker 5: the first two executives.
[21:19] Speaker 4: They appealed it and the convictions were upheld.
[21:21] Speaker 5: And then we get to the story where the twenty
[21:24] Speaker 5: first century Fox executive is named at A. Non Lopez,
[21:28] Speaker 5: and he had hired a squad of good lawyers and
[21:32] Speaker 5: they challenged and challenged the case, and then out of
[21:35] Speaker 5: the blue, the judge dismisses his conviction, anticipating how the
[21:42] Speaker 5: Supreme Court would rule. And it took everyone by surprise
[21:47] Speaker 5: and the government by surprise, and they challenged it, and
[21:50] Speaker 5: they went to the second Circuit and they won. The
[21:53] Speaker 5: circuit reinstated the conviction. He continued to challenge it, and
[21:58] Speaker 5: he was taken it to the Supreme Court, and then
[22:00] Speaker 5: suddenly everyone was very shocked. Literally days before Christmas of
[22:06] Speaker 5: last year, the government and the Solicitor General said they
[22:11] Speaker 5: weren't going to appeal this case. So basically it put
[22:16] Speaker 5: the case back into the posture of a conviction for
[22:19] Speaker 5: ernand Lopez and full play will no longer be challenged.
[22:23] Speaker 5: Nothing to see here, Supreme Court judges, the government is
[22:27] Speaker 5: pulling away from this prosecution. So reporting from my colleague
[22:33] Speaker 5: and I in be law determined that the Trump administration
[22:37] Speaker 5: ordered the Eastern District to pull the plug on their prosecution.
[22:43] Speaker 1: The order you reported from the Solicitor General to pull
[22:45] Speaker 1: the prosecution was that after Donald Trump was awarded a
[22:50] Speaker 1: so called peace prize by FIFA.
[22:53] Speaker 5: Yes, surprisingly you remember that, so, yes, this is true.
[22:57] Speaker 5: It happened days later. So my sources told me that
[23:02] Speaker 5: the Eastern District did not want to pull the plug.
[23:04] Speaker 5: It was one of their And the other thing that
[23:06] Speaker 5: affects this whole thing and this equation is that more
[23:10] Speaker 5: than two dozen defendants either pleaded guilty or were convicted.
[23:16] Speaker 5: So imagine you have at least twenty four people or
[23:20] Speaker 5: entities that got convicted in this crackdown of international soccer,
[23:25] Speaker 5: and what happens to them too? Because they all are
[23:28] Speaker 5: running back to court saying, Hey, if the judge voided
[23:31] Speaker 5: that guy's conviction, what about us?
[23:33] Speaker 4: What about me? It was an uproar in the court.
[23:36] Speaker 1: In January, the Supreme Court vacated and remanded the Second
[23:42] Speaker 1: Circuit's decision reinstating the bribery and money laundering convictions of
[23:48] Speaker 1: Lopez and the full play group. So where do we
[23:51] Speaker 1: stand now?
[23:52] Speaker 5: Where we stand now is the case has been abandoned.
[23:56] Speaker 5: So what does it mean for not only against a
[23:59] Speaker 5: non lope as in Full Play the company that were convicted,
[24:02] Speaker 5: the government's abandoning that. But then it threw into question
[24:05] Speaker 5: what was the government going to tell the district court
[24:08] Speaker 5: judge about the remaining defendants? And so what's happened now
[24:11] Speaker 5: is the judge ordered the government to explain what the
[24:16] Speaker 5: heck was going on. So the same judge that overturned
[24:19] Speaker 5: the conviction of these two defendants, and she had previously
[24:22] Speaker 5: upheld the convictions of the other twenty four entities and people,
[24:26] Speaker 5: she basically asked the government to explain themselves. So what
[24:30] Speaker 5: we saw on filed late Thursday that showed up on
[24:33] Speaker 5: the docket on Friday morning is the government's explanation.
[24:36] Speaker 1: And what is the government's explanation.
[24:38] Speaker 5: The government's explanation is we've decided it's not worth pursuing
[24:42] Speaker 5: these two cases. So is it kind of a solemnonic
[24:45] Speaker 5: decision if you want to call it because they want
[24:47] Speaker 5: to save the bathwater rather than the baby, I guess
[24:50] Speaker 5: if you want to call it that way, I mean
[24:52] Speaker 5: they're basically agreeing to dismiss these two cases. The Full
[24:57] Speaker 5: Play Company conviction as well as Air non Lope. But
[25:01] Speaker 5: they say there are different elements involved in the earlier convictions,
[25:05] Speaker 5: so they should stay. They said that the Department of
[25:08] Speaker 5: Justice has determined it will not commit further resources to
[25:11] Speaker 5: these two defendants conviction. They said, in the interests of justice,
[25:15] Speaker 5: just get rid of these two cases, but let the
[25:18] Speaker 5: other twenty four stand.
[25:19] Speaker 4: It's quite remarkable.
[25:21] Speaker 1: Absolutely, the federal rules of criminal procedure do allow the
[25:24] Speaker 1: government to seek dismissal of an indictment even after there's
[25:29] Speaker 1: a conviction by a jury and a court has entered judgment.
[25:33] Speaker 1: But how unusual is it for the US attorney to
[25:36] Speaker 1: come in and say, well, we got these convictions, your honor,
[25:39] Speaker 1: but forget it, we don't really want them.
[25:42] Speaker 5: It's unusual too that the government, when they were winning,
[25:46] Speaker 5: would pull out. I mean, that was what was so
[25:48] Speaker 5: extraordinary about what I saw on the docket in December.
[25:51] Speaker 5: I mean, first docket entry was from the US Attorney
[25:54] Speaker 5: in Brooklyn telling the court, hey, we're pulling out of
[25:58] Speaker 5: this case, and then leave seconds later, minutes later, the
[26:02] Speaker 5: Solicitor General of the United States pulls out of the case. Now,
[26:06] Speaker 5: my colleague and Bee Law had his sources saying that basically,
[26:11] Speaker 5: DOJ felt and the Solicitor General felt the case was
[26:14] Speaker 5: not winnable, but they had already won at the circuit,
[26:17] Speaker 5: which is kind of incredible.
[26:19] Speaker 4: I mean, if you're winning, do you give up?
[26:22] Speaker 1: Not usually. I mean, there seems to be a lot
[26:25] Speaker 1: more here than we're being told. So the papers are
[26:28] Speaker 1: in then or are there more papers to come?
[26:31] Speaker 4: Well?
[26:32] Speaker 5: I anticipate that what's going to happen is these defendants,
[26:36] Speaker 5: some of them led guilty expecting you know, some of
[26:40] Speaker 5: them have gone to prison and are out.
[26:42] Speaker 4: So we have two defendants.
[26:44] Speaker 5: The soccer bosses, Latin American soccer bosses. They got convicted
[26:49] Speaker 5: in twenty seventeen and did their time and are out.
[26:53] Speaker 5: They're wealthy enough to sort of try to go to
[26:55] Speaker 5: see if they can get a clean slate, to wipe
[26:57] Speaker 5: away their conviction and ask for something. I mean, I
[27:00] Speaker 5: don't think this is the end of it. Obviously, if
[27:02] Speaker 5: you have a smart lawyer and you're mad about Hey,
[27:05] Speaker 5: I did a deal, but that's not fair to let
[27:07] Speaker 5: that other guy get away with it. Why do I
[27:10] Speaker 5: have to have that black mark on my record? You know,
[27:12] Speaker 5: certainly worth hiring a lawyer and to pursue that, and.
[27:15] Speaker 1: So they're like about thirty individuals and corporate defendants who've
[27:21] Speaker 1: entered guilty please who may now want to withdraw them.
[27:25] Speaker 5: Here's this data I have. Or corporate defendants pled guilty,
[27:31] Speaker 5: Two corporate defendants got deferred prosecution agreements, one corporation got
[27:35] Speaker 5: a non prosecution agreement, twenty six peopled defendants got convicted,
[27:41] Speaker 5: and one basically they dropped the cooperation agreement. I mean,
[27:45] Speaker 5: one key former banker. He was a city bank banker,
[27:48] Speaker 5: and he became the government's star witness. I mean, the
[27:51] Speaker 5: guy cooperated for like eight years in this investigation, and
[27:55] Speaker 5: his whole life got eaten up by this case and
[27:58] Speaker 5: he pled guilty and he got no JA time, you know.
[28:01] Speaker 5: I mean, imagine being that person and you've given up
[28:03] Speaker 5: your life and there were death threats allegedly against him,
[28:07] Speaker 5: and imagine you were living under this cloud and then
[28:09] Speaker 5: the US government says, hey, it's okay, nothing to see.
[28:13] Speaker 1: Here are the prosecutions over basically, or there are other
[28:16] Speaker 1: cases pending.
[28:17] Speaker 5: I mean, there's two defendants who it's a father and
[28:21] Speaker 5: son sports marketing company executives that are basically in South
[28:26] Speaker 5: America and they're never going to be showing up in
[28:29] Speaker 5: the US so they could get arrested. So I mean
[28:32] Speaker 5: that case is pending against them, and the government has
[28:35] Speaker 5: vowed that they would pursue them, And I mean the
[28:37] Speaker 5: way the government has written their letter that they filed
[28:39] Speaker 5: on Friday is it's sort of very discrete carving out
[28:43] Speaker 5: of the defendants. These two defendants are non Lopez and
[28:47] Speaker 5: full Play and not the other twenty six in that hopper.
[28:52] Speaker 5: So if you can think about it, those earlier people
[28:54] Speaker 5: may be according the way the government's perspective, they're still
[28:58] Speaker 5: in their target site. We'll see if some executives got
[29:02] Speaker 5: a lot of money and wants to get their lawyer
[29:04] Speaker 5: in and make a big deal about this that hey,
[29:06] Speaker 5: this ain't fair, you know.
[29:08] Speaker 1: And hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties were paid, right.
[29:12] Speaker 5: I mean, the government's carving out and say basically, leave
[29:15] Speaker 5: those alone. Those are fine, We're still happy with those
[29:19] Speaker 5: and we're not going to give up. It's just Ernon
[29:21] Speaker 5: Lopez in this full Play group that we're giving up on,
[29:25] Speaker 5: which is kind of a wild theory. And it'll be
[29:28] Speaker 5: up to the judge who's basically started this to have
[29:31] Speaker 5: to parse out.
[29:33] Speaker 1: And also the Second Circuit decision was important as far
[29:38] Speaker 1: as you know, the government's ability to prosecute these corruption
[29:43] Speaker 1: cases right sort of gave the government a leg up.
[29:46] Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's one of the arguments that the government
[29:48] Speaker 5: did say that when the member, when I said that,
[29:51] Speaker 5: the judge ex partey, without any invitation, decided on her
[29:55] Speaker 5: own to say, you know what, I just sat through
[29:58] Speaker 5: this trial, they got a conviction, and here I am
[30:01] Speaker 5: about five six months later, on second thought, I'm going
[30:04] Speaker 5: to dismiss it because this is what I think the Supreme.
[30:07] Speaker 4: Court would roll.
[30:07] Speaker 5: The Circuit was very affirm and said she shouldn't be
[30:11] Speaker 5: taking the job of having to determine how the Supreme
[30:13] Speaker 5: Court is going to roll on something. She should just
[30:16] Speaker 5: have looked at what she was asked for. So the
[30:19] Speaker 5: government fought very strenuously in their appeal, saying to the
[30:24] Speaker 5: Second Circuit, Hey, this is important for us. We have
[30:28] Speaker 5: a new way of attacking international corruption. The judge had
[30:32] Speaker 5: ruled that this was international corruption that didn't fit into
[30:35] Speaker 5: the actual statutes.
[30:38] Speaker 1: The Solicitor General, according to your sources, didn't want to
[30:42] Speaker 1: go forward with this because he was afraid that the
[30:45] Speaker 1: Supreme Court would reverse because the Supreme Court has been
[30:49] Speaker 1: on a sort of a mission to limit corruption cases.
[30:54] Speaker 5: Yes, Solicitor General was saying this, but my sources also
[31:00] Speaker 5: told me that they were pretty convinced that they were
[31:04] Speaker 5: going to win at the Supreme Court and that they
[31:07] Speaker 5: were ordered to give up on the case by DOJ
[31:10] Speaker 5: and the Trump DOJ just days after mister Trump got
[31:14] Speaker 5: the FIFA Peace Prize.
[31:17] Speaker 1: And if every time this listener general thought they were
[31:19] Speaker 1: going to lose it, the Supreme Court just threw in
[31:21] Speaker 1: the towel, that would write pretty unusual, right, And.
[31:26] Speaker 5: Also you know, I mean the Second Circuit is hardly
[31:30] Speaker 5: they are one of the venues for this grist of
[31:34] Speaker 5: white collar corruption, right. I mean they are a very
[31:37] Speaker 5: tough circuit and they've made a lot of rulings that
[31:41] Speaker 5: have gotten and have been upheld in the Supreme Court
[31:44] Speaker 5: so anticipating.
[31:46] Speaker 4: I mean, this case so extraordinary.
[31:48] Speaker 5: You have a judge who decided on her own without
[31:50] Speaker 5: being asked. She was repeatedly asked by the way during
[31:54] Speaker 5: the trial by the defense lawyers, hey this is not right,
[31:58] Speaker 5: and she rejected it. And then she gets she had
[32:01] Speaker 5: the summer to think about it and to decide it
[32:02] Speaker 5: on her own you know what, I think this is
[32:04] Speaker 5: what the Supreme Court's going to rule. And she was
[32:07] Speaker 5: actually like chided by the Second Circuit about this.
[32:10] Speaker 1: So what does the timeline look like in the case now?
[32:13] Speaker 5: When the Solicitor General and the US Attorney told the
[32:18] Speaker 5: judge that they were not going to pursue this case,
[32:22] Speaker 5: a couple of weeks later, the district court judge asked
[32:26] Speaker 5: for an explanation. So next thing we have to hear
[32:29] Speaker 5: is from the defense lawyers, who I'm sure are thrilled
[32:32] Speaker 5: and what they're.
[32:33] Speaker 4: Going to say.
[32:34] Speaker 5: And then I expect more defendants maybe flocking to her
[32:40] Speaker 5: and asking her, Hey.
[32:42] Speaker 4: What about me? Nobody wants to be left out of
[32:45] Speaker 4: a good ruling like this.
[32:47] Speaker 1: The two defendants or non Lopez in the sports marketing
[32:50] Speaker 1: group full play, I mean, is there anything about them
[32:53] Speaker 1: that stands out from the rest of the defendants? Do
[32:57] Speaker 1: they have more ties to the Trump administration? I mean,
[33:00] Speaker 1: do they stand out for any other reasons?
[33:03] Speaker 5: Ernn Lopez has gotten very wealthy and doing a podcast company,
[33:07] Speaker 5: and that's got a lot of clout and ate a
[33:10] Speaker 5: lot of money after he left twenty first Century Fox.
[33:14] Speaker 5: You know, he's got some excellent lawyers, including one who
[33:18] Speaker 5: is a former federal judge in Brooklyn. So, whether one
[33:21] Speaker 5: has moral suasion or has you know, the creds, the
[33:26] Speaker 5: legal creds to help you in your pursuit of what
[33:30] Speaker 5: you think was an injustice. I mean, the one thing
[33:33] Speaker 5: that all the defendants have assailed is there was no
[33:36] Speaker 5: nexus for the US to bring this kind of case.
[33:39] Speaker 5: But the government Eastern District especially is very creative and
[33:43] Speaker 5: establishing that there were actual impacts on the American legal
[33:46] Speaker 5: system or also on the financial system, and they showed
[33:50] Speaker 5: thousands of financial transactions where some of them even had
[33:54] Speaker 5: bribes that went through US financial institutions who correspondent banks.
[33:59] Speaker 5: So I mean the government, yeah, I mean the reach
[34:03] Speaker 5: maybe has been self impost you know, think about it,
[34:06] Speaker 5: if you put yourself in a straight track of rather
[34:08] Speaker 5: than having one put on you. So, I mean, this
[34:11] Speaker 5: kind of decision will maybe limit further transnational criminal cases,
[34:16] Speaker 5: especially white collar financial fraud cases.
[34:19] Speaker 1: We've talked about these cases so many times, and I
[34:22] Speaker 1: anticipate we'll be talking about them again. Thanks so much, Patty.
[34:27] Speaker 1: That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Patricia Hurtado, And that's it for
[34:30] Speaker 1: this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can
[34:33] Speaker 1: always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast.
[34:37] Speaker 1: You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at
[34:40] Speaker 1: www dot bloomberg dot com, slash podcast slash Law, and
[34:45] Speaker 1: remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight
[34:48] Speaker 1: at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and
[34:52] Speaker 1: you're listening to Bloomberg

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