On April 5, 2016, Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell, who heads the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, announced a new “FCPA pilot program” designed to motivate companies to voluntarily self-disclose Foreign Corrupt Practices Act-related misconduct. In making the announcement, AAG Caldwell disclosed a newly released policy document authored by Fraud Section Chief Andrew Weissmann titled “The Fraud Section’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Enforcement Plan and Guidance.”

According to the guidance, during a one-year pilot period effective April 5, 2016, companies that voluntarily disclose improper conduct to the Fraud Section’s FCPA Unit, fully cooperate in accordance with the Principles of Federal Prosecution of Business Organizations and the Yates memo, appropriately remediate, and otherwise pass muster under the “stringent requirements” of the pilot program may receive up to a 50 percent reduction off the bottom of the U.S. sentencing guidelines fine range and generally will not be required to retain an independent compliance monitor. Companies that do not voluntarily disclose improper conduct, but that do “fully cooperate[] and timely and appropriately remediate[],” will be accorded “at most a 25% reduction off the bottom of the Sentencing Guidelines fine range.”

Originally published in Law360 on April 8, 2016.