Commercial Litigation Update

What General Counsel and Business Leaders Need to Know

• One National Standard: The U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy (CEP) creates a national policy for how the DOJ may award companies cooperation credit for the voluntary self-disclosure of corporate misconduct in the criminal context.
• A 120-Day Clock: The CEP gives a company 120 days to self-report after a whistleblower’s internal complaint, signaling that the DOJ may treat anything past roughly four months as untimely—far less time than most internal investigations take to finish.
• Disclosure as a Business Decision: A company’s decision to self-disclose misconduct is no longer just a legal judgment call but a business-critical risk decision that can have real financial and reputational consequences.

In this episode of Speaking of Litigation^®, Epstein Becker Green attorneys Zachary S. Taylor, Melissa L. Jampol, and Elena M. Quattrone break down the DOJ’s new CEP and what it means for how quickly companies must investigate, escalate, and decide whether to self-disclose potential misconduct.

With the release of the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, questions regarding enforcement activity in states that restrict or ban abortion by statute have been raised and have remained mostly hypothetical. The frequency and scope of future enforcement activity remains unknown. Given the variety of laws now in effect in restricted and ban states, and that enforcement of such laws is subject to state prosecutorial discretion as well as the prevailing political climate, enforcement initiatives are expected to vary by state.

On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court released its opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning Roe v. Wade—the 1973 landmark ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion. Now, companies that operate in states where abortions are banned or restricted are facing a quagmire of laws and risks regarding enforcement. Additionally, the risk landscape is not static, but rather in flux, as the federal government (agencies such as the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) and a myriad of states introduce new legislation and issue guidance on a near-daily basis.