The U.S. Department of Justice’s recent boasts about rigorous enforcement of the securities laws ran into a significant obstacle this month when a federal judge in Washington, D.C., dismissed part of a $50 million securities fraud case and accused DOJ prosecutors of overreaching. In an increasingly global economy, the case is a good measure of the limits on the ability of the United States government to enforce U.S. law against foreign companies.

The case in question, United States v. Singhal et al., involves a company called Xinhua Finance Limited, which was organized under the laws of the Cayman Islands and is based in Shanghai, China, and its wholly owned affiliate, Xinhua Financial Network Limited. That affiliate provided information products about Chinese financial markets, including ratings, news and investor relations.

The indictment in the case charged three people, Shelly Singhal, Loretta Bush and Dennis Pelino, with participating in a scheme to defraud the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission through a series of undisclosed and disguised related-party transactions and insider trading that generated proceeds exceeding $50 million. The indictment reads like a typical U.S. securities fraud case except for one thing: It does not expressly charge any violations of U.S. securities laws, including failure to report related-party transactions or insider trading. Rather, the indictment charges these individuals with mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2 and 1341, and false statements, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2 and 1001 – a choice of charges that was undoubtedly driven by the foreign status of the company in question.

In considering motions to dismiss the false statement counts of the indictment, Chief Judge Royce Lamberth observed that the false statement statute encompasses two kinds of misconduct – affirmative misstatements and concealment.

After finding that the indictment only included allegations of concealment, Chief Judge Lamberth then noted that criminal liability for concealment under the false statement statute exists only if there is a duty to disclose. The court then noted the absence of any duty to disclose that applied to this foreign company under U.S. law. While SEC regulations require that foreign companies disclose to the SEC certain information required to be disclosed to foreign regulators, the Court noted the absence of any allegation in the indictment that foreign law imposed an obligation to disclose the particular information that formed the basis for the false statement charges in this indictment. Given the absence of a duty to disclose, the court dismissed the false statement counts of the indictment.

It is not clear from the court’s opinion whether the government may be able to resurrect the false statement charges by alleging more clearly the existence of a duty to disclose under foreign law that would trigger a concomitant duty for disclosure to U.S. authorities in this case. Certainly, the decision must be viewed as a caution for enforcement authorities about the boundaries of extraterritorial application of U.S. law. There is no question that U.S. enforcement can reach many foreign companies and transactions, but that power has its limits.