On March 14, 2012, BizJet International Sales and Support Inc., a provider of aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services based in Tulsa, Okla., agreed to pay an $11.8 million criminal penalty to settle charges related to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for bribing government officials in Latin America to secure contracts to perform aircraft MRO services for government agencies, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division.

Russian opposition leaders endorsed President Obama’s request to repeal a Cold War-era trade sanction on March 12, 2012. This sanction, known as the Jackson-Vanik trade amendment, was established in 1974 and was intended to make it easier for Jews to emigrate to other countries after the Soviet Union forbid Jewish emigration. If the sanction is not repealed by the time Russia joins the World Trade Organization (WTO) in a few months, the United States will violate the organization’s rules and regulations. This violation would result in the levying of heavy tariffs on United States businesses, leading to the loss of millions of dollars in revenue.

A Pakistani villager, Noor Khan, working with the charity Reprieve and law firm Leigh Day and Co., is suing the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, over a U.S. drone strike that killed the villager's father.  Mr. Khan is alleging that the Foreign Secretary provided the necessary intelligence to the United States, which proceeded to launch a drone strike on the village, allegedly killing 40 people in March 2011.  U.S. drones have targeted Pakistan numerous times in the past several years, and Mr.

On March 9, 2012, the United States government agreed to significantly accelerate the transfer of detained insurgents to Afghan government control while ratainining a veto over the ones that can be released.  The memorandum of understanding gives Afghanistan immediate control of detainees officially.  However, it provides for a six-month period of transition to full Afghan control of the detainees.

R. Allen Stanford, the former billionaire financier, has been convicted of defrauding his investors of over $7 billion over 20 years, and now faces the prospect of up to 230 years in prison.  Stanford, who was once worth $2 billion, has had his considerable personal assets seized by the court.  A civil trial, in which prosecutors hope to seize his remaining assets in accounts in Switzerland, Britain, and Canada, also begins this week, but is not expected to last long.

On March 5, 2012, speaking on law and national security at Northwestern Law School, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder justified the use of lethal force under international law and the U.S. Constitution to protect the country from any imminent threat of violent attack.  He explained the U.S. government's use of lethal force in self defense against a leader of al Qaeda or an associated force who presents an imminent threat of violent attack would not be lawful and hence it would not violate the Executive Order banning assassination or criminal statutes.

On March 2, 2012, Spain's National Court ordered the extradition to Egypt of Hussein Salem, an associate of former President Hosni Mubarak, along with his son. Khaled.

In June 2012, Mr. Salem, his son Khaled, and Ali Evsen,  a Turkish businessman who is alleged to have formed the companies used to send money from Egypt to Spain..

Spanish authorities also froze $47 million in his accounts and seized homes worth $14 million, including seven in Marbella, Spain, in Andalucia (southern Spain). 

On February 29, 2012,  a senior judge of the Portuguese Constitutional Court said that the case concerning the U.S. government's extradition request for George Wright is over since the U.S. government did not make its final appeal to the Constitutional Court.

As a result, Portugal will not  extradite fugitive George Wright to the United States for crimes he committed there four decades ago.

On March 1, 2012, the Spanish Ministry of Finance issued its Annual Plan of Tax and Customs.  It focused on the main goals:

1. Investigation of tax and customs fraud;
2. Control of fraud in the collection phase;
3. Collaboration with tax administration of the autonomous communities (i.e., other Spanish states).

The plan will target the dismantling of the underground economy which imports and sells goods from third countries, especially Asia.