Mark Herr Communications Issues Statement Regarding the Arguments Before the United States Court for the Seventh Circuit to Reverse Conviction of Anne Pramaggiore

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Former United States Solicitor General Paul Clement will present arguments to overturn the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) conviction of former Commonwealth Edison CEO Anne Pramaggiore before the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on Tuesday, April 14^th at 9:30 AM.

Pramaggiore, the only female CEO in the company’s history, turned around a failing electric utility and transformed it into one of the country’s best, while cutting rates four times and reducing outages to historic lows.

Ms. Pramaggiore was initially convicted of bribery and violating the FCPA in 2023. The following year, in Snyder v. United States, the Supreme Court rejected the government’s bribery theory. In 2025, in response to Snyder, the trial judge in Pramaggiore’s case dismissed the bribery conviction, leaving the FCPA counts.

The government argued Pramaggiore violated the FCPA by creating documents that covered up the bribery. Pramaggiore was sentenced in September to two years in federal prison for the FCPA violation.

In briefs in support of the motion to reverse Pramaggiore’s conviction, Clement wrote,

The government prosecuted this case based on its overarching theory that Pramaggiore engaged in a scheme to, in its words, “bribe” former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

That theory was subsequently discredited by Snyder v. United States, 603 U.S. 1 (2024), which admonished that mere gratuities are not “bribes” and that the government could not prove the latter with evidence of the former.

Although the district court correctly recognized Pramaggiore’s substantive bribery convictions could not survive Snyder, it reached the baffling conclusion that Pramaggiore’s remaining convictions for conspiracy and for FCPA books-and-records violations - which were all dependent on the alleged and now-discredited “bribery” scheme - could remain standing.

Clement also argued in court papers that, “Anne Pramaggiore does not deserve to spend another night in prison based on convictions that are dependent on legal theories undermined by not one, but two, intervening Supreme Court cases.”

In the second Supreme Court case, Thompson v. United States, the Court held that for documents to give rise to criminal liability, the documents had to be actually false. The documents at issue in the Pramaggiore case were true on their face.

About Paul Clement

Clement has argued more than 125 cases before the Supreme Court, including Loper Bright v. Raimondo, NetChoice v. Moody, Axon Enterprise v. FTC, Rucho v. Common Cause, Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, United States v. Booker, Tennessee v. Lane, and McConnell v. FEC. Paul has argued more Supreme Court cases since 2000 than any lawyer in or out of government. He has also argued many important cases in the lower courts, including Walker v. Cheney, United States v. Moussaoui, and NFL v. Brady.