The radical shift in focus of the Department of Justice compounded by the Trump administration’s 2018 budget cuts indicates drastic changes for the prosecution of white collar crimes.  

Fighting corporate fraud and other misconduct became a top priority for the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) in the final two years of the Obama administration.¹ During her tenure, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates focused her efforts on the implementation of a strategy to protect the nation’s financial system in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Individual accountability for corporate wrongdoing was prioritized – with the DOJ concentrating both its civil and criminal investigations on the individuals within the corporations who actually perpetrated the wrongdoing as opposed to the corporations themselves.² The goal was to incentivize a change in corporate behavior and ensure the proper parties were held responsible.³