Earlier this month, the Department of Justice announced its first-ever department-wide corporate enforcement policy, which applies to all corporate criminal cases.

The policy – formally known as the “Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy” or “CEP” – is intended to promote consistency, transparency, and predictability and to incentivize voluntary self-disclosure and remediation. It supersedes all existing policies – but seems to incorporate many of their principles.

This Sullivan & Cromwell memo summarizes key changes from existing policies. As far as what the new approach means for companies, the S&C team shared these thoughts in their memo:

The new CEP now ensures that — with the exception of antitrust cases that have long been subject to the Antitrust Division’s unique leniency program — the concrete benefits of voluntary self-disclosure, cooperation, and remediation offered by the Department in corporate criminal cases are governed by a single, uniform policy. For companies facing potential criminal exposure under all other federal criminal statutes, the new policy brings a degree of predictability and consistency that did not exist under the prior regime, where the potential benefits and aggravating circumstances depended on which office or component was handling the matter. The benefits of the CEP are now available across the board, regardless of where a case lands.

The tradeoff is that the prior patchwork of component-specific policies offered companies some degree of flexibility and, in certain instances, more favorable terms. While the new Department-wide CEP makes several changes to the prior Criminal Division CEP, it hews closely to it, and companies can continue to look to precedent cases decided under prior policies to get a sense of what to expect going forward.

We’re posting lots of memos about this development in our “White Collar” Practice Area.

– Liz Dunshee