On May 12, 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Criminal Division announced significant changes in its policies on investigating and prosecuting white collar crime, including a shift in focus toward several areas deemed to have the greatest impact on American citizens and companies, increased avenues and rewards for self-reporting, and maximized investigation efficiency. The changes were outlined in a memorandum issued by Criminal Division head Matthew R. Galeotti and seek to “strike an appropriate balance between the need to effectively identify, investigate, and prosecute corporate and individuals’ criminal wrongdoing while minimizing unnecessary burdens on American enterprise.”
The shift in policies brings the division more in line with the administration’s agenda and a series of executive orders setting out priorities and goals for criminal enforcement and the promotion of American interests.
To support these goals, the memorandum outlines the division’s priorities and policies for prosecuting corporate and white collar crime based on three core tenets: focus, fairness, and efficiency.
Areas of Focus
The division will prioritize its investigation and prosecution of white collar crime in 10 “high-impact” areas that Galeotti described as “the most urgent threats to our country, our citizens, and our economy”:
- Waste, fraud, and abuse against government programs, including health care and federal program and procurement fraud.
- Trade and customs fraud, including tariff evasion.
- Fraud perpetrated through variable interest entities, particularly Chinese-affiliated companies that facilitate the flow of U.S. investor funds into strategic industries in China.
- Fraud victimizing U.S. investors, individuals, and markets, including Ponzi schemes, investment fraud, elder fraud, servicemember fraud, and fraud that threatens the health and safety of consumers.
- Conduct threatening national security, such as money laundering or sanctions violations enabling cartels, transnational criminal organizations, hostile nation-states, and terrorist organizations.
- Material support by corporations to foreign terrorist organizations, including cartels and transnational criminal organizations.
- Complex money laundering used to support the manufacture of illegal drugs.
- Violations of the Controlled Substances Act and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, such as the unlawful manufacture and distribution of fentanyl and opioids.
- Bribery and associated money laundering that impact U.S. national interests.
- Crimes involving digital assets that victimize investors and consumers, further criminal conduct, and willful violations that facilitate significant criminal activity.
Simultaneously, Galeotti directed an expansion of the division’s Corporate Whistleblower Awards Pilot Program to provide rewards to whistleblowers who provide tips in the following areas:
- Violations by corporations related to international cartels or transnational criminal organizations, including money laundering, narcotics, Controlled Substances Act, and other violations.
- Violations by corporations of federal immigration law.
- Violations by corporations involving material support of terrorism.
- Corporate sanctions offenses.
- Trade, tariff, and customs fraud by corporations.
- Corporate procurement fraud.
Promoting Fairness/Clear Path
To promote fairness in its prosecution of white collar crime, the division announced a revision of its Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy to clarify that “additional benefits are available to companies that self-disclose and cooperate.”
Under the revised policy, corporations have a “clear path” to a declination of criminal prosecution by meeting the division’s core requirements: (1) voluntary self-disclosure to the division; (2) full cooperation with the division’s investigation; (3) timely and appropriate remediation; and (4) absence of aggravating circumstances related to the nature and seriousness of the offense.
“Full cooperation” with the division’s investigation means the proactive and timely disclosure of all facts relevant to the investigation and the timely and voluntary preservation and collection of relevant documents and information. For companies that meet each of these criteria, the division will decline to pursue criminal prosecution against the company and will instead pursue only those individual wrongdoers within the organization. According to Galeotti, “the key here is self-disclosure,” and “[w]here a company does not self-disclose, it will not receive these benefits.”
Promoting Efficiency-Investigations and Monitors
Under the new policy, the division announced a shift away from corporate investigations that “can linger for years and, at times, with little meaningful progress.” Instead, prosecutors are directed to “take all reasonable steps to minimize the length and collateral impact of their investigations” and to “move expeditiously to investigate cases and make charging decisions.”
Galeotti also announced new monitor selection criteria to promote the narrowly tailored use of monitors in criminal prosecutions. According to Galeotti, “the benefits of the monitor should outweigh its costs, both monetary costs, as well as burdens on the business’ operations” and the costs “must be proportionate to the severity of the underlying conduct.”
Conclusion and Key Takeaways
The division’s changing priorities do not signal a retreat from the prosecution of white collar crime but rather a shift in focus designed to bring it more in line with the administration’s policy goals of rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse at the federal level and prosecuting cartels and other transnational criminal organizations and those that aid them within the corporate space. Among those focus areas are a specific target on health care fraud and government procurement fraud, presumably through traditional False Claims Act investigations and prosecutions.
The division is also prioritizing the self-reporting of white collar violations and more clearly defining the rewards available to companies for their full and voluntary disclosure of potential crimes. A robust compliance program and internal reporting system are essential for companies to identify potential criminal conduct by bad actors within the organization and to provide a timely and complete self-disclosure to the division. Through this self-disclosure policy and the division’s goal of more efficiency in white collar investigations, the onus is on companies to conduct their own investigations and provide a timely and complete disclosure of potential wrongdoing in order to receive the full benefits of cooperation. Companies may need to timely weigh their individual circumstances before making any decisions in this regard.
