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'Swift' Prosecutions of Corporations and Executives
Last month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) celebrated the five-year anniversary of the Corporate Fraud Task Force with a press release and a party at which then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in a prepared statement, hailed significant changes in the way white-collar cases have been prosecuted. Gonzales praised the Task Force's role in breaking 'large investigations into smaller, less complex pieces,' and bringing those cases faster.
Gonzales's remarks echoed prior statements from high-ranking DOJ officials about so-called 'real-time' prosecution of corporate wrongdoing. For example, the Task Force's first report to President Bush insisted that 'criminal consequences for individuals and businesses engaged in corporate fraud had to be swift and virtually certain.' Subsequent reports to the President trumpeted the Task Force's 'swift' and 'decisive' prosecutions, the goal of which was to 'restore investor confidence.' In his prepared remarks, Gonzales explained the reason for this goal: 'The markets want, and will reward, reliability, integrity, and transparency in American companies. Investors don't put their money into companies ' or markets ' that they do not trust.' To carry out this goal, Gonzales and other senior-level DOJ personnel urged prosecutors to bring cases quickly.
But expedited investigations mixed with quick charging decisions have not been a reliable recipe for success. Just one month before the Task Force's anniversary, a Boston jury quickly disposed of the DOJ's charges against four former high-level executives of the pharmaceutical company Serono SA related to an alleged doctor kickback scheme. On May 4, after a three-week trial, the jury took less than three hours to acquit all the defendants on 22 charges.
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