DOJ Announces New Corporate Enforcement Policies

The US Department of Justice on May 12, 2025 announced revisions to the Criminal Division’s “enforcement priorities and policies for prosecuting corporate and white-collar crimes” under the current US administration. The new policy memorandum directed to the Criminal Division outlines changes to enforcement priorities, amendments to the Corporate Whistleblower Awards Pilot Program, a continued focus on seeking cooperation from corporations and the prosecution of individual wrongdoers, and a directive to streamline corporate investigations.

This LawFlash outlines the most significant points at a high level. Additional and more detailed analyses will be forthcoming.

PRIORITIES

The memorandum (Memo) identifies areas of focus that “will have the greatest impact in protecting citizens and companies and promoting U.S. interests” and sets out a priority order. Notably, the administration continues to prioritize fraud and abuse of government programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, defense spending, trade and customs fraud, and various areas of financial fraud. The Memo directs Criminal Division attorneys, in investigating and prosecuting the referenced crimes, “to be guided by three core tenets”—focus, fairness, and efficiency.

In addition, the Memo notes that “overbroad and unchecked corporate and white-collar enforcement burdens U.S. businesses and harms U.S. interests.” It further states that “Prosecutors must avoid overreach that punishes risk-taking and hinders innovation. For these reasons, the Division’s policies must strike an appropriate balance between the need to effectively identify, investigate, and prosecute corporate and individuals’ criminal wrongdoing while minimizing unnecessary burdens on American enterprise.”

The Memo also reiterates the importance of corporate compliance programs and directs Criminal Division prosecutors to assess whether the term of any mandated enforcement action is appropriate and necessary in light of the severity of the misconduct and the effectiveness of the compliance program, among other things.

The administration’s enforcement priorities as to investigation and prosecution are as follows:

• Fraud and abuse of government programs, including healthcare fraud and program and procurement fraud
• Trade and customs fraud, including tariff evasion
• Fraud perpetrated through variable interest entities (VIEs), “which are typically Chinese-affiliated companies listed on U.S. exchanges that carry significant risks to the investing public. . . ;” including offering fraud, “ramp and dumps,” elder fraud, securities fraud, and other market manipulation schemes
• Complex frauds, such as Ponzi schemes, investment fraud, elder fraud, service member fraud, and fraud that threatens the health and safety of consumers
• Conduct by financial organizations and insiders committing sanctions violations or enabling transactions by cartels, transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), hostile nation-states, and/or foreign terrorist organizations
• Material support by corporations to foreign terrorist organizations, including recently designated cartels and TCOs
• Complex money laundering, with a special call-out of Chinese money-laundering organizations and facilitation of the flow of drugs
• Violations of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), including unlawful manufacture and distribution of chemicals and equipment used to create counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl and unlawful distribution of opioids by medical professionals and companies
• Bribery and money laundering that “impact U.S. national interests, undermine U.S. national security, harm the competitiveness of U.S. business, and enrich foreign corrupt officials” (see our February 2025 LawFlash on the administration’s temporary pause of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement)
• Certain crimes related to digital assets

ADDITIONS TO WHISTLEBLOWER PILOT PROGRAM

The Memo outlines the following new subject areas for which tips that lead to forfeiture will be rewarded:

• Violations by corporations related to international cartels or TCOs, including money laundering, narcotics, CSA violations, and others
• Violations by corporations of federal immigration law
• Violations by corporations involving material support of terrorism
• Corporate sanctions offenses
• Trade, tariff, and customs fraud by corporations
• Corporate procurement fraud

PROSECUTION OF INDIVIDUALS AND EMPHASIS ON CORPORATE COOPERATION

The Memo emphasizes that DOJ’s “first priority is to prosecute individual criminals,” reinforcing the importance of the Criminal Division's Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy (CEP). With respect to corporations, the Memo reiterates previous emphasis on cooperation and the potential rewards of that cooperation. Importantly, the Memo directs the Criminal Division's Fraud Section and the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section to revise the CEP to identify and clarify the availability of additional benefits for cooperation and to refine the CEP, such that its core components are clearer and more comprehensible. The Memo also directs those sections to review the length of the terms of existing agreements to determine if they should be terminated early.

DIRECTIVE TO STREAMLINE CORPORATE INVESTIGATIONS

The Memo directs the Criminal Division to speed up its corporate investigations and decrease the time it takes to make charging decisions. It also foreshadows a new monitor selection policy, emphasizing that independent monitors should be imposed only when doing so is “necessary,” and that the scope of monitorships must be “narrowly tailored” to “address the risk of recurrence of the underlying criminal conduct and to reduce unnecessary costs.”

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