Since October 2021, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been implementing a variety of changes to its corporate criminal enforcement policies. These efforts all reflect DOJ’s focus on individual accountability, punishing recidivist misconduct, prioritizing compliance and responsible corporate citizenship, promoting corporate self-disclosure, and incentivizing whistleblowers to come forward. The latest development in these efforts is the Criminal Division’s Pilot Program on Voluntary Self-Disclosures for Individuals that DOJ released on April 15, 2024.
On December 26, 2023, the U.S. Sentencing Commission (“USSC”) proposed several amendments to its Guidelines Manual (the “Guidelines”). Two of these proposed amendments have the potential to especially impact sentencing decisions in white collar criminal cases. In particular, one amendment changes the rule for calculating loss, and another provides new options regarding the consideration of acquitted conduct.
Rule for Calculating Loss
The USSC’s proposed revision to the Guidelines’ rules for calculating loss arises out of an effort to continually evaluate and ...
On March 7, 2024, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced the launch of a 90-day sprint to develop and implement a pilot program for DOJ’s latest “carrot” to incentivize companies to invest in a culture of compliance: a whistleblower rewards program. In an address at the American Bar Association’s 39th National Institute on White Collar Crime, Monaco explained: “[t]he premise is simple: if an individual helps DOJ discover significant corporate or financial misconduct — otherwise unknown to us — then the individual could qualify to receive a portion of the ...
Building on attempts in recent years to strengthen the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) white collar criminal enforcement, on September 15, 2022, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced revisions to DOJ’s corporate criminal enforcement policies. The new policies, and those that are in development, further attempt to put pressure on companies to implement effective compliance policies and to self-report if there are problems. Notably, the new DOJ policies set forth changes to existing DOJ policies through a “combination of carrots and sticks – with a mix of incentives and deterrence,” with the goal of “giving general counsels and chief compliance officers the tools they need to make a business case for responsible corporate behavior” through seven key areas:
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