On 15 September 2022, the US Department of Justice released additional guidance around its corporate criminal enforcement policies.

The guidance reinforced the DOJ’s commitment to corporate criminal enforcement and contains several important takeaways for companies, particularly with respect to the evaluation of compliance programs, including:

• a continuing focus on individual accountability and expectation that companies will promptly share hot documents or evidence with prosecutors to receive cooperation credit
• encouraging companies to shape financial compensation in order to promote compliance, including creating a compensation system that uses both affirmative incentives and financial penalties for non-compliance
• the need for all corporations with robust compliance programs to have effective policies and controls governing the use of personal devices and third-party messaging platforms, provide clear training to employees on these policies and to enforce such policies when breaches are identified

This is the latest announcement in a continuing trend by the DOJ and other regulators world-wide in scrutinising companies’ corporate compliance programs to ensure they go beyond paper policies and are effective in practice.

Read the full speech and accompanying memorandum here: Further Revisions to Corporate Criminal Enforcement Policies, September 15, 2022 (justice.gov)