Call it the Sarbanes-Oxley effect.

With Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation, Flowserve Corporation and AB Volvo coming to grief over the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act - that's three FCPA actions in the first months of 2008 - lawyers are predicting another record year is in store for FCPA enforcement.

And just as Sarbanes-Oxley turned into a goldmine for accountants, the FCPA has turned into a bonanza for lawyers, accounting firms, forensic computer specialists and compliance consultants.

"One longtime practitioner estimates that the FCPA segment has grown tenfold in the past decade, with lots of litigators and white-collar defense attorneys now jumping into the act," writes the Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein. "And while it is likely to peak in the next year or two, FPCA work, along with the coming flood of subprime mortgage litigation, should be enough to keep Washington's legal industry humming, even as the rest of the economy slips slowly into recession."