Helen V. Cantwell, Jane Shvets, and Andrew M. Levine are Partners at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. This post is based on a Debevoise memorandum by Ms. Cantwell, Ms. Shvets, Mr. Levine, Winston M. Paes, Douglas S. Zolkind, and Erich O. Grosz.
On November 22, 2024, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri announced several important changes to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Corporate Enforcement Policy (the “CEP”). The changes seek to further incentivize companies to voluntarily self-disclose misconduct, cooperate with DOJ and remediate any wrongdoing. In particular, these revisions provide that: (i) a company can receive significant benefits from a good-faith self-disclosure to DOJ, even if the disclosure does not technically qualify as a “voluntary self-disclosure” under the CEP; (ii) to qualify as a “voluntary self-disclosure,” the company must disclose “original” information of which DOJ was not previously aware; and (iii) a company that voluntarily self-discloses can receive a presumption of a declination even if it earned “significant profit” from the misconduct.
