DOJ Announces White-Collar Enforcement Priorities and Revised Policies

On May 12, 2025, the Criminal Division of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) issued new guidance on white-collar enforcement priorities and revised its policies on corporate voluntary self-disclosure (VSD), the selection of monitors in corporate resolutions, and the corporate whistleblower awards pilot program. In this Legal Update, we review the critical aspects of this guidance and revised policies and what it means for white-collar enforcement in the new administration.

Guidance on White-Collar Enforcement Priorities

In a memorandum titled “Focus, Fairness, and Efficiency in the Fight Against White-Collar Crime,” the DOJ provided extensive guidance on the new administration’s white-collar enforcement priorities (“Enforcement Guidance”). The Enforcement Guidance sets out ten “high-impact areas” that the DOJ “will prioritize investigating and prosecuting:”

• Waste, fraud, and abuse, including health care fraud and federal program and procurement fraud that harm the public fisc.
• Trade and customs fraud, including tariff evasion.
• Fraud perpetrated through variable interest entities (VIEs), including, but not limited to, offering fraud, “ramp and dumps,” elder fraud, securities fraud, and other market manipulation schemes.
• Fraud that victimizes US investors, individuals, and markets including, but not limited to, Ponzi schemes, investment fraud, elder fraud, servicemember fraud, and fraud that threatens the health and safety of consumers.
• Conduct that threatens the country’s national security, including threats to the US financial system by gatekeepers, such as financial institutions and their insiders that commit sanctions violations or enable transactions by drug cartels, transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), hostile nation-states, and/or foreign terrorist organizations.
• Material support by corporations to foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), including drug cartels recently designated as FTOs and TCOs.
• Complex money laundering, including Chinese Money Laundering Organizations, and other organizations involved in laundering funds used in the manufacturing of illegal drugs.
• Violations of the Controlled Substances Act and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), including the 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 associated money laundering that impact US national interests, undermine US national security, harm the competitiveness of US businesses, and enrich foreign corrupt officials.
• As provided by the Digital Assets DAG Memorandum, crimes (1) involving digital assets that victimize investors and consumers; (2) that use digital assets in furtherance of other criminal conduct; and (3) willful violations that facilitate significant criminal activity. Cases impacting victims, involving cartels, TCOs, or terrorist groups, or facilitating drug money laundering or sanctions evasion shall receive highest priority.

Key Takeaways

There is a strong focus on (1) fraud that results in substantial harm to individual investors and consumers, or that causes financial harm to the federal government, and (2) white-collar crimes that implicate US national interests, including national security, such as those involving terrorist organizations, drug cartels and/or TCOs, and US economic interests.

Notably, the list of priorities includes bribery—including bribery that (1) impacts US national interests; (2) undermines US national security; (3) harms the competitiveness of US businesses, and/or (4) enriches foreign corrupt officials—and cites the February 10, 2025 Executive Order pausing the enforcement of the FCPA to ensure that it does not impact the competitiveness of US businesses. This could portend a shift in FCPA enforcement towards non-US based companies, especially if the actions by the non-US based company adversely affect US interests or harm the competitiveness of US businesses. 

Also significant is the emphasis of the word “willful” in deciding whether to prosecute crimes involving digital assets, which under the Enforcement Guidance require “willful violations that facilitate significant criminal activity.” This could signal a shift away from prosecutions in the corporate sphere of digital asset companies and exchanges that reflected recklessness or conscious avoidance, as opposed to a willful violation. It also reflects the DOJ’s April announcement stating its intent to dispense with charging digital assets companies with certain regulatory violations.

In highlighting fraud as a priority, the Enforcement Guidance discusses VIEs, which it describes as “typically Chinese-affiliated companies listed on US exchanges that carry significant risks to the investing public.” The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, enacted in 2020, requires companies listed on US exchanges to disclose information about their relationships with foreign governments, particularly China, and provides for potential delisting. Thus, such enforcement actions may set the stage for the delisting of Chinese VIEs by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The list of priorities also specifically references elder fraud, servicemember fraud, and fraud that threatens the health and safety of consumers, all of which had previously been a core focus of the Department’s Consumer Protection Branch.¹

Moreover, the Enforcement Guidance also makes clear that white-collar enforcement will focus on prosecuting individuals rather than corporations: “The Department’s first priority is to prosecute individual criminals” and that “[n]ot all corporate misconduct warrants federal criminal prosecution. Prosecution of individuals, as well as civil and administrative remedies directed at corporations, are often appropriate to address low-level corporate misconduct and vindicate US interests.” This also reflects a move away from bringing corporate enforcement actions and a willingness to consider civil and administrative remedies, as opposed to criminal prosecution and resolution. The Enforcement Guidance also criticizes the typical length and overbreadth of white-collar investigations, and places an emphasis on efficiency. It mandates that “prosecutors ... take all reasonable steps to minimize the length and collateral impact of their investigations and ensure that bad actors are brought to justice swiftly and resources are marshaled efficiently.” To that end, it provides for oversight from Main Justice to ensure investigations are resolved in a timely fashion.

In sum, the Enforcement Guidance reflects the DOJ’s renewed focus on considering the collateral impact of corporate investigations on US business interests, and allocating resources and efforts towards individual bad actors, especially where white-collar crimes implicate national security interests and TCOs.  

DOJ Revised Policies

Revised Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy

As noted above, the DOJ also revised the Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy for the Criminal Division. The following table compares the Enforcement Guidance to prior policy.

Key Takeaways

The revised policy provides greater clarity, certainty and incentives to self-disclose. One way it seeks to achieve this is by making declinations public, which will allow for increased transparency. In addition, the Enforcement Guidance encourages prosecutors to consider all forms of resolutions—non-prosecution agreements, deferred prosecution agreements, and guilty pleas—and focus on a case-specific analysis when coming to a decision on disposition. Moreover, the DOJ has, and will continue to, revisit existing agreements to see if early termination is appropriate; some agreements have already been terminated. Elements such as maturity of the corporate compliance program, duration of the post-resolution period, and whether the company self-reported the conduct will factor into early termination. In the future, the Enforcement Guidance mandates that prosecutors impose terms that are appropriate and necessary in light of factors such as the severity of the company’s misconduct, the degree of cooperation and remediation, and the efficacy of the company’s compliance program at the time of resolution.

Revised Corporate Monitor Policy

The Enforcement Guidance also announced revisions to the DOJ’s monitor selection policy. The DOJ’s priority will be to evaluate preexisting monitorships to ensure that they are not outliving their utility, imposing unwarranted expense, or unduly interfering with the monitored company’s business. Furthermore, the DOJ will be imposing fewer monitorships, only imposing monitors in situations where they can be properly resourced, and the scope of the monitorship will be narrowly tailored. The DOJ will seriously consider the cost of the monitor, ensuring that the burden on the business’s operations is not outweighed by the benefits the monitor confers. The DOJ will also consider: (i) the nature of the conduct and risk of recidivism; (ii) the feasibility of independent government oversight; (iii) the efficacy of the company’s compliance program and culture of compliance; and (iv) the company’s ability to adapt its compliance program.

Revised Corporate Whistleblower Pilot Program

The DOJ has also revised its corporate whistleblower pilot program to add “subject areas” that align with the priorities set forth in the Enforcement Guidance. New whistleblower program enforcement priorities include procurement and federal program fraud; trade, tariff, and customs fraud; violations of federal immigration law; and violations involving corporate sanctions, material support of foreign terrorist organizations or those that facilitate cartels including money laundering, narcotics, and Controlled Substances Act violations. As before, tips must result in forfeiture in order to be eligible for an award.

Conclusion

In sum, the Enforcement Guidance and the revised policies reflect the administration’s enforcement priorities of reducing investor and consumer harm through fraud, targeting terrorists, combating narcotics-trafficking and dismantling TCOs in determining how to best allocate resources for white-collar enforcement. The DOJ is also squarely focused on considering alternatives to criminal corporate enforcement by demonstrating an openness to civil and administrative remedies and the use of DPAs and NPAs in lieu of corporate guilty pleas, as well as a shift away from the use of monitorships as part of future corporate resolutions. The DOJ has provided increased incentives for companies to voluntarily self-disclose and cooperate with the government. Notwithstanding these changes, other parts of the government, including individual US Attorneys’ Offices and regulatory agencies, such as the SEC, still have their own voluntary self-disclosure programs, and companies must still take those considerations into account before self-reporting. Importantly, it also appears that future white-collar enforcement, particularly in the areas of anti-bribery and money laundering, will focus on non-US-based individuals and entities, especially where conduct implicates US national security or business interests. 

 

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¹ Notably, earlier this month, DOJ staff were notified that the Consumer Protection Branch’s criminal portfolio (and the more than 80 trial attorneys responsible for those matters) will be moved from the Civil Division to the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section. The memo suggests that criminal consumer protection cases will remain a focus of the Department, notwithstanding the internal reorganization.