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Going back many decades, each Deputy Attorney General (DAG) has promulgated revisions to the Department of Justice’s corporate criminal enforcement policies, leaving behind eponymous policy memos that were carefully studied by defense attorneys (e.g., the “Holder Memo” and the “Thompson Memo”). Finding an approach that deters corporate wrongdoing and incentivizes corporations to participate in investigations but avoids punishing entire corporations (including their shareholders and employees) for the conduct of a few bad actors has proven to be a perennial challenge. On the one hand, overly lenient policies may fail to incentivize companies to cooperate with investigations and identify wrongdoers. On the other hand, policies that are overly focused on collecting headline-making settlement amounts from corporations may do little to deter wrongdoing by employees, while indictment can amount to a death sentence for a corporation that may ultimately be innocent of the charged crime. This was the case with Arthur Andersen in the early 2000s, an auditing firm unwisely charged by the Enron Task Force with obstruction of justice, a crime that it did not commit. By the time the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the conviction, the scandal had effectively put the firm out of business. See, Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States, 544 U.S. 696 (2005) (reversing trial conviction).
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DOJ’s Cyber Fraud Initiative: A Wake-up Call That Keeps Ringing
By Randy S. Grossman, Kareem A. Salem and Kayla LaRosa
DOJ’s Cyber Fraud Initiative has been a wake-up call for companies to prioritize cybersecurity and adhere to stringent standards. By leveraging the FCA, DOJ has used a powerful enforcement tool to target a wide range of cybersecurity failures and misrepresentations. The increasing focus on cybersecurity by enforcement agencies means that robust cybersecurity practices are becoming a standard expectation, not just a best practice.
The State of Supreme Court Jurisprudence On Public Corruption
By Carrie H. Cohen and Allison M. Magnarelli
In the past decade, each time the Supreme Court has taken certiorari in a public corruption case, the court has reversed trial convictions and limited the types of conduct that constitute a federal bribery offense.
Defending Against Extradition to the United States
By Robert J. Anello and Richard F. Albert
The arm of U.S. extradition law is long. Fortunately, practitioners have defenses at their disposal that they may raise in the requested country’s courts to help either limit the scope of prosecution once extradition occurs, or to prevent it altogether.
New DOJ Self-Disclosure Pilot Program Increases Risk for Startups
By Jonathan Fahey, Jonathan P. Lienhard and Oliver Roberts
The DOJ has created new incentives for employee, or anyone, to report criminal misconduct allegedly committed by companies and their agents. Given their often laxer internal reporting structures and higher employee turnover rates, startup companies should pay particularly close attention to this new development to best mitigate legal risks.