Speech by US Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri Delivers Opening Statement Before the Senate Judiciary Committee
Tuesday, December 12, 2023
Location
Washington, DC
United States
Thank you, Chair Durbin and Ranking Member Graham, and Members of the Judiciary Committee.ย
It is an honor to be here before you today to discuss how the dedicated women and men of the Criminal Division work tirelessly to uphold the rule of law, to hold wrongdoers accountable, and to protect the American public.
I am very proud of the work the Criminal Division, and the department as a whole, is undertaking related to white-collar and corporate enforcement.
Our recent cases involving the CEOs of two cryptocurrency companies are prime examples of our determination to hold companies and corporate executives accountable, no matter how prominent or influential. The guilty pleas from Binance, the worldโs largest cryptocurrency exchange, and its CEO last month were historic โ this was the largest corporate guilty plea that also involves the plea of the companyโs CEO. And that landmark case came on the heels of the departmentโs swift conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, who perpetrated one of the largest financial frauds in American history.ย
The Criminal Division is committed to combating white-collar and corporate crime, including by investigating and prosecuting both individuals and companies who commit crimes. We do so out of two primary sections. First, our Fraud Section handles all cases brought under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, as well as cases involving fraud, including health care, securities, commodities, and investment fraud.
Second, our Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section (MLARS) prosecutes financial institutions and their insiders for Bank Secrecy Act and sanctions violations. The Criminal Division is also proud to be at the forefront of other important department initiatives from Task Force KleptoCapture, which aims to hold Russia accountable in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine, to our National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, which investigates and prosecutes complex schemes involving cryptocurrency.
Corporate crime undermines public trust in the fairness of our economic institutions. And corporate crime threatens our national security by destabilizing our institutions from Main Street to Wall Street. Holding culpable individuals accountable is the departmentโs number one priority in this area. Corporations act only through people, and we of course canโt put companies in jail.
This year so far, the Criminal Divisionโs Fraud and Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Sections secured over 280 convictions against individual defendants, and they charged or convicted more than 30 executives. Our corporate resolutions this year have so far secured over $4.8 billion in criminal penalties from corporations, with more to come. And the numbers demonstrate the scale and complexity of our white-collar cases: this year, the average penalties imposed in our corporate resolutions was $350 million, and the average alleged fraud loss in cases charged by our Fraud Section was over $25 million per individual defendant. These are the highest numbers in years.
The department is also implementing robust policies to encourage companies to voluntarily self-disclose misconduct and cooperate with our investigations. Companies that self-report their misconduct set the right tone for their employees and lead by example โ showing with actions that criminal conduct will not be tolerated and will be reported to the authorities. Companies that self-disclose may alert us to criminal conduct we would otherwise be unaware of, and enable us to hold culpable individuals accountable.
Let me give you an example. In 2022, Jardine Lloyd Thompson, a reinsurance broker, made a voluntary self-disclosure under our policy and began cooperating. That led to the prosecution of five individuals and the development of similar bribery cases against two other U.K. re-insurance brokers โ H.W. Wood and Tysers Insurance Brokers. Building on this evidence, we prosecuted three additional individuals and just last month held H.W. Wood and Tysers to account for their conduct. This single self-disclosure in 2022 not only led to meaningful individual and corporate penalties against eight individuals and three companies, it also allowed the department to achieve significant impact across the reinsurance industry.
Deterrence and creating a culture of compliance is another pillar of the departmentโs corporate enforcement policy. The departmentโs clear communications to the business community about our policies โ and our expectations regarding corporate compliance programs โ is key in deterring corporate crime.
Where misconduct does occur at a company, we seek not only to punish the company, but also to remediate to avoid future misconduct. Our policies incentivize companies to analyze root causes of misconduct. To take appropriate disciplinary action for employee misconduct. And to fully assess and enhance the companyโs compliance program to address any gaps and weaknesses. Remediation is an essential component of every corporate case we bring.
We will continue to work every day not only to bring impactful cases and hold white-collar criminal actors accountable, but also to apply our corporate enforcement policies with transparency, consistency, and predictability so we can effectuate real change in corporate behavior.
Thank you for your time today.
