Throughout the week over at Securities Docket I highlight the most interesting columns and blog posts from around the web on the subjects of SEC enforcement and securities litigation. Here is a digest of my picks for the week ending April 19.

The FCPA's Back, Baby!

Samuel Rubenfeld, WSJ Risk & Compliance

The U.S. Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission have announced several settlements and charges of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in the last several days. They range from a dramatic arrest at New York's JFK airport of an executive at Alstom AB to a quiet settlement with Philips that only amounted to an administrative SEC action.

What's with the sudden burst of activity, after virtually no enforcement action in the first three months of the year?

You Don't Want to Mess With Wall Street's Cop

Russell G. Ryan, Bloomberg View

With its recent insider-trading settlement against SAC Capital Advisors LP, the Securities and Exchange Commission is again under fire for its policy of letting defendants resolve fraud allegations without admitting wrongdoing....

Settling cases without an admission of wrongdoing is eminently fair and reasonable, not a sign of spinelessness. Here's hoping the SEC has the fortitude to continue defending its commendable approach to settlements.

The near-impossible standard for showing auditor fraud

Alison Frankel, On the Case

That's outside of the United States, though. In this country, Aubin found, shareholders rarely even bother to name audit firms as defendants in class actions: Only two securities class actions filed in 2012 made claims against top audit firms. And if you want to know why, read U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin's 72-page opinion Monday dismissing allegations that the Chinese unit of Deloitte Touche failed investors in its audits of the Chinese financial software firm Longtop Financial Technologies, which admitted in 2011 to cooking its books and was subsequently sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Scheindlin concluded that Deloitte may have been lazy, at worst, but under U.S. laws and accounting standards, the audit firm should be considered a victim of Longtop's fraud, not an abetter of it.

Little Accountability for Directors, Despite Poor Performance

Steven M. Davidoff, DealBookAficionados of good corporate governance shouldn't get too excited about the fact that two Hewlett-Packard directors are leaving the board and a third, Raymond J. Lane, is stepping down as chairman.

The reason is that directors are still rarely if ever held responsible for their poor conduct.

The latest evidence comes from a study of bank directors and whether shareholders held them accountable for their – let's face it – horrific performance after the financial crisis.