Compliance Update - Deferred Prosecution Agreements Finally Come To Canada

The Canadian federal government released Bill C-74 on March 27, 2018. Bill C-74 (a 500-page plus document) proposes amendments to several statutes to give effect to a number of changes announced in the government's recently published budget document. Tucked at the end of this bill are amendments to Canada's Criminal Code relating to deferred prosecution agreements.

The proposed amendments to the Criminal Code come in the wake of a recently completed public consultation run by the Canadian government from September 25 to December 8, 2017. The public consultation sought input on the Canadian deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) regime (the consultation also sought input on Canada's integrity regime relating to government suppliers). The feedback received as part of this consultation was largely supportive of DPAs. (We have previously written about this issue and have advocated for the introduction of this and other tools: Results of consultation, Multilateral