Commercial Litigation Update

On August 1, 2024, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) launched the Corporate Whistleblower Awards Pilot Program (“Pilot Program”), a three-year initiative managed by the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section.

This is the culmination of the DOJ’s “policy sprint,” announced back on March 7, 2024 by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, intended to incentivize companies to invest in a culture of compliance. While announcing the Pilot Program on August 1st, Monaco stated that this Pilot Program is intended to work with DOJ’s corporate voluntary self-disclosure programs to “create a multiplier effect that encourages both companies and individuals to tell [DOJ] what they know – and to tell [DOJ] as soon as they know it.”

On December 26, 2023, the U.S. Sentencing Commission (“USSC”) proposed several amendments to its Guidelines Manual (the “Guidelines”). Two of these proposed amendments have the potential to especially impact sentencing decisions in white collar criminal cases. In particular,  one amendment changes the rule for calculating loss, and another provides new options regarding the consideration of acquitted conduct.

Rule for Calculating Loss

The USSC’s proposed revision to the Guidelines’ rules for calculating loss arises out of an effort to continually evaluate and ...

On March 7, 2024, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced the launch of a 90-day sprint to develop and implement a pilot program for DOJ’s latest “carrot” to incentivize companies to invest in a culture of compliance: a whistleblower rewards program. In an address at the American Bar Association’s 39th National Institute on White Collar Crime, Monaco explained: “[t]he premise is simple: if an individual helps DOJ discover significant corporate or financial misconduct — otherwise unknown to us — then the individual could qualify to receive a portion of the ...