Federal prosecutors have been able to indict corporations and their employees for foreign bribery since 1977, but on the flip side there is no U.S. law that allows prosecutors to go after foreign officials who solicit those bribes.

That may be changing. Last week a bipartisan group introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that would allow U.S. prosecutors to indict foreign officials who demand or accept bribes in return for fulfilling, ignoring or violating their official duties.

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Kristen Savelle, managing director of the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University, saw some possible rough spots in the bill. Savelle also oversees Stanford Law School’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Clearinghouse.

Savelle said Tuesday the title of the bill suggests some form of coercion is a necessary element of the crime. “In fact,” Savelle added, “the law criminalizes the receipt of a bribe, whether solicited or not.”

She also found the bill to be vague about its jurisdictional parameters, “and there are certainly concerns that the U.S. is interfering with local prosecutions by the jurisdictions where the foreign officials reside.”

Savelle said some discrepancies between the FCPA and the bill may need to be worked out. “The FCPA also includes defenses and exceptions that are not accounted for in the proposed bill,” she added.

Both Savelle and Steinman noted that the U.S. can file charges now against foreign officials who demand bribes.

But such cases are much trickier, Steinman said. “Now you have to get them for an independent violation of the law, such as money laundering or under the Travel Act,” he explained. “The cases are hard to prove.”