Tim O’Toole comments on the Supreme Court’s decision regarding honest services fraud, which limited the scope of the statute to bribery and kickbacks. However, O'Toole says that "one area of great concern" is that the area of bribery and kickbacks is not as straightforward as the court's opinion may suggest. He observes that the lower court decisions have stretched the meaning of "bribery" beyond the traditional quid pro quo situation to "bribery-esque" or "bribery-like" conduct, such as a transfer of benefits to influence a particular decision. Parties are now faced with the task of figuring how the elements of fraud mesh with the elements of bribery, O'Toole says.

O'Toole's comments also appear in Bloomberg BNA's Criminal Law Reporter and U.S. Law Report.