Antitrust/Competition

Subscribe to Antitrust/Competition

On October 4, 2023, Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco, the second-ranking official in the US Department of Justice (“DOJ” or the “Department”), announced a new Safe Harbor Policy for Voluntary Self-Disclosures (“VSDs”) made in connection with mergers and acquisitions (“M&A”) (together, “M&A Safe Harbor Policy”).  The new policy encourages acquiring companies to timely disclose misconduct uncovered during M&A due diligence and harmonizes the DOJ-wide approach to VSDs for M&A transactions.  The implementation of the M&A Safe Harbor Policy is the most recent initiative in the Biden Administration’s efforts to combat corporate crime and has broad implications across DOJ’s Divisions.…

Continue Reading DOJ Announces “Safe Harbor” Policy for Mergers & Acquisitions

In this blog post, we provide an overview of the updates to the Criminal Division’s Corporate Enforcement Policy (CEP) and discuss the impact of these changes on the corporate enforcement policies for criminal violations of sanctions and export controls, criminal violations of antitrust laws, and civil violations of the False Claim Act.

On January 17, 2023, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. announced changes to the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) Corporate Enforcement Policy (“CEP”), including applying the most recent FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy to all corporate criminal cases handled by the DOJ’s Criminal Division. The FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy, codified in § 9-47.120 of the Justice Manual, provides that if a company voluntarily self-discloses, fully cooperates, and timely and appropriately remediates, there is a presumption of declination absent certain “aggravating circumstances involving the seriousness of the offense or the nature of the offender.” The clear goal of this and other recent pronouncements from senior DOJ leadership is to tip the scales in favor of early disclosure by setting forth concrete incentives for corporations that discover potential criminal violations. 

Importantly, the CEP now explicitly states that a company presenting “aggravating circumstances,”1 while not eligible for a presumption of declination, may still obtain a declination if (1) the company had an effective compliance program and system of internal accounting controls at the time of the alleged misconduct, (2) the voluntary self-disclosure was made “immediately” upon the company becoming aware of the allegation of misconduct, and (3) the company provided “extraordinary cooperation” to DOJ investigators. For companies that do not receive a declination but do receive credit, the CEP also increases the available discounts from fines under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines (“USSG”), both for companies that voluntarily self-disclose and those that do not.

Although the updated CEP heavily emphasizes the benefits of voluntary self-disclosure and cooperation, its implications for companies will largely depend upon the Criminal Division’s application of the policy, including through DOJ prosecutors’ interpretation of important, undefined terms such as “immediate” disclosure and “extraordinary” cooperation.

Moreover, although the CEP applies to the entire Criminal Division, it could potentially have ripple effects on the corporate enforcement policies in place in other DOJ components. For example, the CEP does not revoke or alter the DOJ National Security Division’s (“NSD”) Export Control and Sanctions Enforcement Policy for Business Organizations (the “Export Control and Sanctions Enforcement Policy”). That NSD policy is generally consistent with the CEP, but it does not spell out affirmatively, as the new Criminal Division policy does, the circumstances that a company must demonstrate to be considered for a non-prosecution agreement (“NPA”) rather than a criminal resolution in the face of aggravating factors. Similarly, the Antitrust Division and Civil Division have their own corporate enforcement policies in place, each of which has aspects uniquely tailored to those respective regimes. It therefore remains to be seen whether these other Divisions within DOJ will adjust their corporate enforcement policies to align more precisely with the CEP.  …

Continue Reading DOJ’s New Corporate Enforcement Policy for the Criminal Division and its Impact on Cases handled by other Divisions

On 17 June, the European Commission released its White Paper “on levelling the playing field as regards foreign subsidies.” The White Paper is built on the conclusion that foreign subsidies can undermine competition and distort the EU internal market. It aims at introduction of new EU legislation to address the regulatory “gap” between the EU state aid rules applying to subsidies granted by the EU Member States to EU entities and the current lack of rules to redress the behavior of corporate actors in the EU whose market actions are unfairly facilitated by unregulated foreign subsidies. Beyond mergers in the EU involving foreign subsidized companies, the legislation would also address concerns about foreign subsidized actors in the context of EU public procurement and access to EU funding.

At the start of her mandate, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had announced her wish to develop tools and policies to better tackle the distortive effects of foreign state ownership and subsidies in the internal market. The COVID-19 crisis encouraged a swift move on this initiative, as pointed out by Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager and Commissioner Thierry Breton, who are co-responsible for this dossier.…

Continue Reading The European Commission releases a White Paper on foreign subsidies in the Single Market

The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced the formation of the Procurement Collusion Strike Force, which will focus on one of the DOJ’s top priorities: protecting public funds from bid rigging and fraud. As DOJ’s Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Criminal Enforcement stated in a speech just before the announcement, it is DOJ’s view that…