DOJ Outlines How Companies Can Avoid US Criminal Prosecution

The Justice Department has standardized the conditions for companies to avoid criminal prosecution when they voluntarily disclose misconduct.

DOJ laid out the standards Tuesday in what officials called the first department-wide policy on corporate enforcement. In addition to self-disclosure, companies must cooperate with investigations and remediate the misconduct, and there must be no “aggravating circumstances” or “pervasiveness of the misconduct within the company.”

DOJ and its Criminal Division have long used prosecutorial discretion in declining to prosecute some corporate defendants seen as cooperative and willing to correct misconduct in white-collar cases. The new policy formalizes the approach across the department ...