Petitioner Hernan Lopez was the CEO of Fox International Channels when one of its subsidiaries paid members of a South American soccer federation in exchange for obtaining the rights to broadcast a major tournament. South America has different cultural norms and customs of gift-giving than the United States, and acts that would qualify as commercial bribery here are not a crime in Paraguay, where the soccer federation is headquartered.

Despite this, prosecutors charged Mr. Lopez with conspiring to violate the federal “honest services” wire-fraud statute. Mr. Lopez moved to dismiss the indictment against him on the ground that the statute does not extend to foreign commercial bribery, but he was convicted at trial. Afterward, the district court granted Mr. Lopez’s renewed motion for acquittal, based on its interpretation of the statute’s reach. However, the Second Circuit reversed, directing the district court to reinstate the guilty verdict.

Mr. Lopez now seeks the Supreme Court’s review. Cato joined an amicus brief filed by Due Process Institute urging the Court to take the case. Despite multiple Supreme Court decisions, what private commercial acts can count as honest-services wire fraud remains unconstitutionally vague. Mr. Lopez could not have known that he violated the honest services statute until the court of appeals told him so. Due process demands better, and Congress needs to go back to the drawing board rather than leaving convictions to the whims of courts and prosecutors.