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How Yates Has Impacted Corporate Responses

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How Yates has Impacted Corporate Responses to Government Investigations.

The Yates Memo outlined the new individual accountability policy and provided new guidance for US Attorneys when combating organizational misconduct. It posits that one of the most effective ways to deter corporate misconduct is by seeking accountability from individuals who perpetrated the wrongdoing. Yates Memo, supra, at 1. The memo set forth 6 guidelines for DOJ attorneys to follow when pursuing corporate wrongdoing:
1. No cooperation credit if the organization does not provide all relevant facts concerning individuals responsible for the misconduct;
2. Focus both civil and criminal investigations on individuals;
3. Do not to release individuals when
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2 https://www.justice.gov/dag/individual-accountability/faq (last visited Apr. 5, 2017) [hereinafter FAQs]. This requirement sets up a tension between the organization and individual employees, officers and directors and makes it difficult to do a thorough internal investigation, because of individual concerns about being identified and prosecuted by the Federal government. Employees are stuck between a rock and a hard place – cooperate or lose your job. Feld and Klein, supra, at 80.

In a post Yates world , organizations seeking cooperation credit (in both civil and criminal matters) must disclose all relevant information related to the misconduct, and must include specific information about individuals involved in the misconduct. o An organization is not expected to have all the facts when they first begin to make these disclosures, and will not be penalized for not providing all information initially, if they don’t know it. Organizations must supplement the information provided to the DOJ as they learn more. Press Release, Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates, Deputy Delivers Remarks at the New York City Bar Association White Collar Crime Conference (May 10, 2016),
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