On March 10, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (the “Department”) issued a new Department-wide Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy (the “Policy”), which is the first corporate enforcement policy applicable to all components of the Department responsible for criminal enforcement, except for the Antitrust Division in its enforcement of 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–38. According to the Department, the Policy is intended to “promot[e] uniformity, predictability, and fairness” in how the Department “pursues white-collar cases to protect the American people.”
The Policy, and its broad application across the Department, represents a significant step in the Department’s approach to corporate enforcement. While the benefits available from a voluntary self-disclosure under the Policy will be familiar to companies that have appeared before the Criminal Division, their availability across nearly all criminal components of the Department is new. This development is, in effect, the culmination of a multiyear effort by the Department to encourage voluntary self-disclosure. While the announcement was coupled with a tough-on-corporate-crime sentiment from the Department, it now remains to be seen whether the Policy will lead to more voluntary self-disclosures as companies navigate an ever-changing enforcement climate.
As we wait to see how the Policy plays out, the adoption of a Department-wide policy should help address complications presented by the patchwork of policies previously in place and the diverging benefits offered under each. With that said, decisions around voluntary self-disclosure remain complex, and companies should ensure that their compliance and investigations programs are well designed to identify and escalate matters that may warrant consideration for self-disclosure so that such matters can be properly and promptly evaluated and investigated.
The Policy seeks to incentivize voluntary self-disclosure across the Department, superseding other criminal corporate enforcement policies that offered fewer benefits or posed different risks to companies. By its terms, the Policy applies to “all corporate criminal matters handled by the Department,” except for criminal violations of specified antitrust laws. For example, it thus supersedes the Southern District of New York’s (“SDNY”) recently announced policy (which we discussed here) and the National Security Division’s (“NSD”) and Environment and Natural Resources Division’s (“ENRD”) policies (discussed here, along with other components’ policies), which were last updated in 2024. These policies also sought to incentivize voluntary self-disclosure, but typically carried fewer benefits or posed increased risks compared to the Policy.
The Policy closely tracks the May 2025 Criminal Division Policy (the “2025 Policy”), with some subtle, but notable, changes and points of emphasis. The Policy still provides for presumed declinations with disgorgement/forfeiture when companies voluntarily self-disclose, fully cooperate, and timely and appropriately remediate, and other benefits for “near-miss” disclosures or cooperation and remediation only. Some of the key characteristics and subtle changes include:
- Slightly wider aperture than in the 2025 Policy for disclosures to be considered voluntary: While the Policy indicates that voluntary self-disclosure credit generally will not be available for disclosures made to regulatory agencies, state and local governments, or civil enforcers, credit may be available for “good faith disclosures to such entities.”
- Continued and expanding cooperation expectations: As we have discussed in prior alerts (here, here, and here), the Department continues to set high cooperation expectations for companies, and that continues in the Policy. Expanding on the expectations set out in the 2025 Policy, the Policy indicates that companies should make third-party agents available for interviews with the Department, which may pose practical challenges for cooperating companies given the Department’s historic wide interpretation of who may qualify as an agent.
- Aggravating factors survive (notwithstanding the recent SDNY policy): Unlike the recently announced SDNY policy, which sought to minimize the effect that aggravating factors, such as the nature and seriousness of the offense, could have on the availability of a declination, aggravating factors may overcome the presumption of a declination under the Policy. Indeed, the Policy widens the recidivism look-back language that was included in the 2025 Policy to cover not only a criminal adjudication or resolution for “similar misconduct by the entity engaged in the current misconduct” “within the last five years,” but also similar misconduct the entity “otherwise” engaged in, without any stated time limit.
- Potentially fewer benefits for near-miss disclosures: The Policy suggests that there may be fewer benefits for companies that make “near-miss” disclosures than was the case under the 2025 Policy, changing the 75% reduction in penalties available under the 2025 Policy to a reduction of between 50 and 75%.
The Policy does not necessarily change the paradigm on voluntary self-disclosure, but it raises a number of questions. How will the various Department components that had their own policies in place apply the Policy? Will some components consider aggravating factors in addition to those set forth in the Policy? For example, will NSD focus specifically on significant profit, the involvement of senior management, or the nature and extent of the threat to national security, which were identified as aggravating factors in NSD’s policy, or will NSD perhaps consider such factors to be components of the Policy’s relatively malleable definition of aggravating factors, even though the Policy does not directly call out these factors? Will some components impose more exacting cooperation expectations? Will some try to layer other features onto the Policy, such as SDNY’s concept of “conditional declinations” or even required reporting periods? In addition, we will be watching to see whether companies that previously made voluntary self-disclosures under less favorable policies, such as to a U.S. Attorney’s Office, can achieve the enhanced benefits available under the new Department-wide Policy. The Criminal Division historically has made the benefits of a new policy available for disclosures made before that policy was in place. And will the Policy encourage more voluntary self-disclosures to components that previously did not provide the presumption of a declination or the enhanced benefits available under the Policy? Only time will tell.
If you have any questions concerning the material discussed in this client alert, please contact the members of our White Collar Defense and Investigations practice.
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