DOJ’s New Rules on Corporate Self Disclosure
Most founders assume that if something goes wrong inside their company, they will hear about it before the government does, and that they will have time to sort it out quietly. Two changes the Department of Justice made in 2026, one in the spring and one over the summer, both chip away at that assumption. Taken together, they say the same thing in two different ways: the company that moves first still comes out ahead, but the company that hesitates now has more to lose.
The first change came on March 10, 2026, when the DOJ issued the first enforcement policy ever applied uniformly across every one of its criminal components, from the Criminal Division down to individual U.S. Attorney’s Offices. Before this, whether a company that came forward about its own misconduct would be rewarded, and how generously, depended heavily on which DOJ office happened to pick up the case. The new Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy replaced that patchwork with one test. A company that voluntarily discloses misconduct, cooperates fully with the investigation, and remediates the underlying problem will have its case declined, absent aggravating circumstances such as executive involvement, egregious conduct, or serious harm to victims. A company that falls just short, a so-called near miss, still qualifies for a 50 to 75 percent reduction off the low end of the federal sentencing guidelines, tied to the quality of its cooperation, and many qualifying companies avoid being placed under an independent compliance monitor. Prosecutors are now expected to document why a company received the particular credit it did. The one carve-out is criminal antitrust enforcement, which still runs under its own separate leniency program.
The second change followed on July 31, 2026, when the DOJ’s Criminal Division revised the eligibility rules for its Corporate Whistleblower Awards Pilot Program, the initiative that pays individuals who report corporate crime directly to federal prosecutors. The old rule barred anyone merely eligible for an award under a separate program, most notably the SEC’s whistleblower rule or the CFTC’s, from also collecting a DOJ award for the same information. That discouraged people with an obvious path to the SEC or CFTC from bothering with the DOJ. The revised rule disqualifies someone only if they actually receive an award from that other program for the same misconduct, so having another option open is no longer a reason to stay away from the DOJ’s door. The program covers eight categories, including foreign and domestic corporate corruption, financial institution crimes, healthcare fraud, and sanctions related offenses, and it connects directly to the March policy: a company that self-reports within 120 days of receiving an internal whistleblower report can still qualify for declination treatment, provided it reports before DOJ makes contact first. That 120-day window was always a race against a company’s own internal processes. It is now also a race against an employee who has a clearer reason than before to skip the internal hotline and go straight to the government.
For a founder-led or growth-stage company, the practical effect of both changes together is to raise the stakes on a decision most executives hope never to face: what to do when counsel learns that an employee’s conduct, a vendor relationship, or a sales practice may have crossed a legal line. Self-disclosure is now meaningfully more attractive than waiting to see whether the government or a whistleblower finds the problem first, but it also demands real speed and rigor, since the credit a company receives depends on cooperation and remediation that prosecutors are expected to justify in writing. That means an internal reporting channel employees actually trust and use, a clear line from that channel to counsel, and the practical ability to reach a self-disclosure decision within days rather than months. Many companies at this stage have never stress-tested whether their process could move that fast, because until this year the odds of an employee bypassing it, or the downside of waiting, were both lower.
If your company has flagged a potential compliance issue, or you are not confident your reporting and escalation process could get you to a self-disclosure decision inside that window, we would welcome the conversation before the question becomes urgent rather than after.
Helpful Resources:
DOJ Press Release on new Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-releases-first-ever-corporate-enforcement-policy-all-criminal-cases
Text of Policy: https://www.justice.gov/dag/media/1430731/dl?inline
Whistleblower Awards Policy Program – DOJ Website: https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-division-corporate-whistleblower-awards-pilot-program
Revised Guidance on Whistleblower Awards Policy Program: https://www.justice.gov/criminal/media/1454776/dl?inline