Overview
- Directive 26-12, issued Oct. 1, 2026, places corporate fraud authority inside the Fraud Division’s new Corporate Enforcement Section and requires prosecutors to report ongoing corporate investigations within seven days.
- The memo narrows enforcement to four priority areas — health care (including controlled substances and FDCA violations), government procurement, significant tax or revenue evasion, and trade-related fraud such as tariff evasion or forced labor — and tells prosecutors to focus resources there.
- Prosecutors must give ‘great weight’ to ten non-exhaustive factors when charging or negotiating resolutions, including management involvement, concealment, schemes lasting three years or more, multi-district conduct, 25+ victims or $25 million+ loss, and transfers that fund foreign adversaries.
- The Fraud Division is expanding data analytics through the National Fraud Detection Center and directing new whistleblower incentive and protection programs, which together are likely to generate faster leads and compress companies’ windows for voluntary self-disclosure under the DOJ’s CEP.
- The directive builds on the April creation of the National Fraud Enforcement Division and a larger DOJ reorganization that moved roughly 500 staff into the unit, signaling sustained, centralized enforcement and raising practical compliance, reporting, and remediation stakes for affected companies and executives.