Sportsmanlike Conduct? DOJ Announces Policy to Avoid ‘Piling On’ Monetary Sanctions in Corporate Resolutions

In remarks made at the American Conference Institute’s 20^th Anniversary New York Conference on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and to the New York City Bar White Collar Crime Institute on May 9, 2018, Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Rod Rosenstein announced two new policy initiatives at the US Department of Justice (DOJ). First, a new “Policy on Coordination of Corporate Resolution Penalties” is intended to avoid the unfair assessment of duplicative fines and penalties – or “piling on”, in football terms – against companies subject to joint or parallel enforcement involving more than one US authority and/or jurisdiction. The US government has received criticism for this issue in the past. In furtherance of the first new policy, the DAG’s second announcement reported the creation of a working group on corporate enforcement designed to ensure consistency among DOJ-resolved white-collar criminal cases and resolutions. For more information, please see our advisory.