U.S. Department of Justice
08/01/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 08/01/2024 10:12
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri Delivers Remarks on New Corporate Whistleblower Awards Pilot Program
Remarks as Prepared for Delivery
Thank you, Deputy Attorney General Monaco.
The Criminal Division is on the front lines of the department's efforts to hold culpable individuals and companies accountable for corporate crime. We also lead the way in developing innovative policies designed to enhance the department's enforcement work and encourage companies to be good corporate citizens.
Today, we are adding a new tool to our enforcement toolbox: The Corporate Whistleblower Awards Pilot Program. With this Pilot Program, we are sending a message to individuals who know about corporate misconduct: Our tip line is open, so if you see something, say something.
Let me take a minute to highlight the focus of our whistleblower program and what it means for companies. The Pilot Program covers four areas of corporate crime. Each is a priority for Criminal Division prosecutors, and none is covered by an existing whistleblower program.
First, foreign corruption. Some foreign corruption cases are covered by the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) whistleblower program, but many of the foreign corruption cases we prosecute are not. Take our cases involving bribery at international commodity trading companies, which resulted in six corporate resolutions, convictions of 20 individuals, and over $1.7 billion in financial penalties including forfeiture. None of those companies issued securities in the United States, so none of them was covered by the SEC's program. Our whistleblower program would reach that type of foreign corruption and help ensure accountability for corporate wrongdoers. This effort is all the more important given the recent enactment of the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act-which we plan to vigorously enforce, especially now that the President signed a bill earlier this week that will make it easier for us to proceed with successful prosecutions.
Second, crimes involving financial institutions. Financial institutions are the first defense against illicit finance, and we want whistleblowers to report abuses of the financial system that are not covered by existing whistleblower programs. This includes cases involving obstruction or defrauding financial regulators. Cases like Binance-a cryptocurrency exchange that did business in the United States but failed to register with financial regulators and comply with U.S. law. And it includes efforts to access services from U.S. financial institutions through fraud, like Danske Bank, which did business with U.S. financial institutions by misrepresenting the nature of anti-money laundering controls it had to address certain high-risk customers.
These are two areas where we are already actively pursuing corporate cases and have been for years. Our whistleblower program will also target two areas where we are looking to expand our corporate enforcement efforts: Corrupt conduct here in the United States-such as where a company bribes a government official to win a contract-and health care fraud involving private insurers. Fraud on federal health care benefit programs is already covered by the Civil Division's qui tam program-and we have no intention of interfering with that highly successful program. But there is no comparable whistleblower program for fraud involving private insurers, even though estimates show tens of billions of dollars in fraud each year.
Through our Pilot Program, we are incentivizing individuals to come forward and report corporate crime in each of these four areas. We are also incentivizing companies to invest in strong internal reporting structures and to report crime when they learn about it. Alongside our Pilot Program, we are also announcing today an amendment to our Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy. Under that amendment, where a company receives an internal report from a whistleblower, if the company comes forward and reports the misconduct to the department within 120 days and before the department reaches out to the company, the company will be eligible for the greatest benefit under our policy-a presumption of a declination-so long as they fully cooperate and remediate.
With today's announcements, we are telling employees: If you are aware of criminal misconduct at your company, now is the time to come forward to the Criminal Division. And our message to company executives and leadership is also clear: We are using more tools than ever before to identify corporate misconduct, so now is the time to make the necessary compliance investments to help prevent, detect, and remediate misconduct. And when misconduct does occur and companies are considering whether to make a self-report, please remember this simple message: Call us before we call you.