U.S. Signals Corporate Crime Shifts in Pair of Fraud Settlements

Year-end penalties imposed against two companies provide the first tangible signs of how the Justice Department plans to approach corporate crime by pressing for more guilty pleas and imposing outside monitors.

Global financial services firm NatWest Markets PLC pleaded guilty to wire and securities fraud on Dec. 21, stemming from market manipulation schemes, and housing contractor Balfour Beatty Communities LLC entered a guilty plea Dec. 22 for defrauding three branches of the U.S. military.

They’re the first two corporate criminal resolutions the department has announced since Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco pledged in October to crackdown on companies that ...