A former coal executive’s conviction on FCPA and money laundering charges offers a window into the future of foreign corruption enforcement, according to McGuireWoods partner Eric Olshan, who shared insights about the case with Dow Jones Risk Journal and Global Investigations Review (GIR).
A federal jury in Pittsburgh convicted Charles Hobson, a former international salesman for a coal company, of seven counts of foreign bribery, money laundering and wire fraud violations on Feb. 18, 2026. Hobson, found guilty of bribing Egyptian officials as part of a scheme that netted around $32.7 million, faces significant prison time, Dow Jones Risk Journal reported in its Feb. 18, 2026, story.
Olshan is a partner in McGuireWoods’ nationally recognized Government Investigations & White Collar Litigation Practice Group. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Pennsylvania, Olshan was part of the U.S. Department of Justice team that investigated Hobson and obtained the indictment against him in 2022.
“The government team here put together a compelling case built on a lot of the defendant’s own statements in texts and corroborated it with a cooperator, which is a significant recipe for a conviction,” Olshan told Dow Jones Risk Journal.
In GIR’s March 3, 2026, story, Olshan highlighted Hobson’s acceptance of kickbacks from the bribe payments as a factor that distinguishes the case from other foreign bribery prosecutions and sheds light on what foreign bribery enforcement will look like under the Trump administration.
“This was not a situation of somebody trying to go out and do right by his American-based company,” Olshan said. “This is somebody who was personally profiting by skimming off these bribes at the expense of his company. That casts this case in a slightly different light.”
“It’s an example of how the current administration will take righteous FCPA cases all the way through to trial,” Olshan added. “This is a datapoint of a case that was reviewed and they made the determination to move forward, and for good reason.”