On Aug. 24, 2021, the Department of Justice announced that it had approved the payment of approximately $201 million in forfeited funds to FIFA, the world organizing body of soccer, and two of its affiliated regional confederations, in connection with losses they allegedly incurred in the infamous sports bribery scandal.

Lawyers for FIFA and the other entities took advantage of an obscure bureaucratic mechanism, called a petition for remission, to secure this enormous recovery. The result was all the more remarkable given that these same organizations had failed to recover anything close to these amounts when seeking restitution from various criminal defendants charged in FIFA-related cases. Practitioners representing victims in financial fraud cases should take note of this outcome, and familiarize themselves with the remission process.

Forfeiture and Restitution