On February 22, 2023, the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy (VSDP) which, effective immediately, applies to all U.S. Attorneys’ Offices (USAOs) nationwide with respect to corporate criminal enforcement matters. Distinct from the Criminal Division’s Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy (Criminal Division’s Corporate Enforcement Policy), which only applies to components of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, the VSDP was approved by the Office of the Deputy Attorney General to immediately apply to all United States Attorney’s Offices throughout the country and was developed by the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee, a select group of U.S. Attorneys that advises the Attorney General on matters of policy affecting the Offices of the U.S. Attorneys. The VSDP’s stated goal is to “standardize how [voluntary self-disclosures] are defined and credited by USAOs nationwide, and to incentivize companies to maintain effective compliance programs capable of identifying misconduct, expeditiously and voluntarily disclose and remediate misconduct, and cooperate fully with the government in corporate criminal investigations.” The VSDP was developed pursuant to the direction in the September 2022 “Monaco Memo” that each DOJ component that prosecutes corporate crime develop and publish a voluntary self-disclosure policy. The concrete nature of the incentives set forth in this policy and their applicability to USAOs across the country should allow corporations better to weigh the pros and cons of self-reporting potential criminal violations—and may increase the appeal of such self-reporting in certain circumstances, although significant risks certainly remain.
Please see full publication below for more information.