On June 5, 2025, the head of the criminal division of the Ministry of Justice (“Doj”), Matthew R. Galeotti, published a memorandum providing advice to prosecutors of the criminal division on corporate resolutions involving criminal, civil, regulatory and administrative procedures parallel by the national and foreign authorities (the “memorandum”).(1) The memorandum orders prosecutors of the criminal division to coordinate resolutions with the national and foreign authorities and to prioritize compensation to the victims during the evaluation of the opportunity to credit the sanctions paid to other authorities. Indeed, the memorandum can limit the circumstances where the criminal division will link the sanctions paid to other authorities.(2)
Coordination
The memorandum places the burden on investigation companies to search for coordinated resolutions. It provides that these companies must (i) “inform the criminal division of these other potential surveys and resolutions” and (ii) “ask for a coordinated resolution” as “early as possible” in the investigation process. The memorandum warns that “prosecutors will not credit payments to other authorities when a company is not significantly trying to coordinate resolutions”.
Credit
The memorandum recognizes that business criminal investigations (and resolutions) often involve several components of the DoJ and federal, state, local and foreign agencies. The memorandum instructs prosecutors of the criminal division who solve a business affair involving investigations of several authorities to avoid double penalties by “credits” or “distribution” of payments made to other authorities in parallel resolutions. This is in accordance with the DOJ justice manual, which provides that federal prosecutors should “consider the amount of fines, penalties and / or confiscations paid to other federal, state, local or foreign authorities” in a coordinated resolution and provides a certain number of factors that prosecutors to consider.(3)
Although the memorandum pursues the anti-“accumulated” policy of the DoJ, it also provides that the main factor that prosecutors must take into account when assessing the degree to which companies will receive a credit for other sanctions are the remuneration of victims. The memorandum asks prosecutors to consider how monetary sanctions would be used by each authority and how the sanctions can be distributed to maximize the recovery of victims of crimes. In practice, this may have the impact of credit reduction that the criminal division provides resolutions with other authorities where these authorities have less developed remuneration mechanisms. At the same time, this may increase the overall compensation of the victims through restitution orders, confiscation orders, delivery and increased contributions to the victims of crimes.
The memorandum provides:
National credit: Considering the opportunity to offer credit in resolutions to national agencies (both at federal level and states), prosecutors of the criminal division “should prioritize overlapping and assistance to the victims of crime”.(4) The memorandum obliges prosecutors to carry out this hierarchy in accordance with two principles:
- Victims of underlying crimes: Prosecutors should prioritize compensation to victims of underlying crimes. Consequently, prosecutors should not reduce the amount of restitution (orders which compensate the victims of crimes) or “the confiscation which could be used for the delivery to compensate for these victims” by credits.
- Victims in general: Prosecutors should not credit the sanctions imposed by other national authorities who would otherwise be used to support victims in general, including through the victims of crimes, unless other authorities “use their sanctions to support victims in the same way”.
This focus on the compensation of victims means that if a sanction “will be filed in a general fund of the State Treasury or the General Treasury Fund”, then the Criminal Division will not give this payment to this payment unless the funds paid to the Doj “are not available to compensate the victims of the underlying crime with compensable losses”.
Foreign credit: The memorandum first explains that, to decide to continue an investigation and prosecution for companies which are also prosecuted by the foreign authorities, prosecutors “should determine as soon as possible if a foreign authority has a parallel investigation into the same entities”. He then recognizes that “the appropriate credits and distribution of payments” made within the framework of a coordinated resolution “improves not only the global fight against transnational crime, but it can also be used to do justice in the United States and in the courts in which the damage caused by these crimes is most extremely experienced.”
In accordance with national guidelines, the memorandum orders prosecutors of the criminal division not to pay the credit payments which would otherwise support the remuneration of the victims “with compensable losses”, unless “foreign authority has a more effective mechanism to directly compensate the victims of the underlying crime”.
The memorandum also provides that, when the only funds available for credits are criminal sanctions which would otherwise be used for “general assistance on victims” through deposit in the victims of crimes, prosecutors should “balance” the interest of “providing general assistance to victims of crimes” with “the interests of (other) jurisdictions”. The Memorandum Provids A Non-Exhaustive List of Factors that prosecutors should consider in such a circumstance, included “The degree of overlap in the leads under investigation in the parallel matters by the various authorities,” »WHERE The Misconduct Occurred, where and Howre Are Felt, and Seriousness of the Harm, “and” The Equities of the Investigating and Prosecuting Authorities Involved, Including How The Case Originated, Which Authorities Developed Key Evidence, and survey resources and prosecution spent by the respective authorities.
Take -out
Companies that envisage a coordinated resolution with several national or foreign authorities will have to seek coordination earlier in the process, after particular attention to the sanctions available in each jurisdiction, and, in particular, of the capacity of each authority to compensate for the victims. The resumption of victims, not only the collection of sanctions, is the principal principle of prosecutors of the criminal division coordinating the resolutions through the courts.
End notes
(1) Memorandum from the Crimp Chef. Div., Guide to coordinating business resolution sanctions in parallel, civil, regulatory and administrative proceduresWe don’t just have to. (June 5, 2025), available here.
(2) The criminal division regularly undertakes measures to apply coordinated companies with other national and foreign authorities. This includes the measures to apply actions relating to money laundering (through the money laundering and asset recovery section), the law on foreign corruption practices (“FCPA”) (through the fraud section and its FCPA unit), fraud in health care (through the fraud section and its fraud of Securities (through the fraud section and its fraud integrity and its major fraud unit). Prosecutors of the criminal division regularly include coordinated measures with foreign authorities, federal and state banking regulators, CFTC and OFAC, among others.
(3) Manual of Justice, “Coordination of parallel, civil, regulatory and administrative procedures” (1-12,000) (new May 2018), available here. These factors “may include, for example, the pretension of the misconduct of a company; statutory mandates concerning penalties, fines and / or confiscations; the risk of unjustified delay in the realization of a final resolution; and the adequacy and reduction of the disclosure of a company and its cooperation with the ministry. This provision of the justice manual was added in 2018 on the basis of the assistant prosecutor general councils Rod Rosenstein. See Paul, Weiss, “Doj issues a new policy on the coordination of corporate penalties to contact” stack “(May 10, 2018), available here.
(4) The memorandum notes that, with regard to the Doj’s resolutions: “The recovery of bad actors can be used to compensate and support the victims: restitution order which compensate the victims of the accused offenses; confiscation orders which compensate the victims by delivery and catering;
This message comes from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. It is based on the company’s memorandum, “Doj issues new directives on the creation of penalties in coordinates”, dated June 16, 2025, and available here.
