DOJ Fraud Division Expands Corporate Enforcement Framework

In August, Bracewell published an update on the memorandum of enforcement priorities issued by Colin M. McDonald, Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice’s National Fraud Enforcement Division.¹ On October 1, the Fraud Division issued additional guidance that signals a prioritized focus on corporate enforcement. The memorandum takes the Justice Manual’s existing, flexible, multi-factor framework for corporate enforcement decisions and layers onto it a Fraud Division-specific list of priority fraud types and a weighted list of aggravating factors that prosecutors must apply.² It also creates a mandatory centralized reporting and review structure through the Corporate Enforcement Section that did not previously exist in this form. In doing so, this latest memorandum highlights an “aggressive, all-tools approach to investigating and prosecuting [the Division’s] healthcare, government, tax, and trade fraud priorities.”³