The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently released its first-ever department-wide Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy (CEP) with an accompanying press release, establishing a single, uniform framework governing how prosecutors across DOJ and U.S. Attorney’s Offices evaluate corporate criminal matters. The thrust of the CEP is to provide concrete incentives – including declination – for companies that voluntarily self-disclose criminal misconduct, fully cooperate with government investigations, and timely remediate wrongdoing, while aiming to hold culpable individuals accountable. For companies in regulated industries, particularly those with environmental compliance and workplace safety obligations, the new policy appreciably changes the calculus around voluntary self-reporting.

Background

DOJ has long encouraged companies to weigh self-reporting, cooperation, and remediation in the context of criminal investigations. Until now, the landscape was a patchwork of component-specific policies with varying terms and benefits, and disparate personnel sometimes held conflicting views of the meaning of key terms within those policies. Beyond the Criminal Division’s own Corporate Enforcement Policy, other DOJ components, including the Environment and Natural Resources Division’s Environmental Crimes Section (through its 2023 Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy), had their own, as did individual U.S. Attorney’s Offices.

The new CEP aims to resolve this uncertainty. It applies to all corporate criminal cases across DOJ writ large, with the exception of antitrust violations.

CEP’s three-part framework

The CEP establishes three resolution pathways, each offering decreasing benefits depending on a company’s conduct and circumstances:

Part I: Declination. The DOJ will decline to prosecute a company when four conditions are met: (1) the company voluntarily self-disclosed the misconduct to the appropriate DOJ criminal component; (2) the company fully cooperated with the investigation; (3) the company timely and appropriately remediated the misconduct; and (4) there are no aggravating circumstances. Notably, the CEP provides that the DOJ “will” decline prosecution when these criteria are met, a stronger commitment than the “presumption” of declination under the Criminal Division’s earlier policy. Companies receiving a declination must still pay all disgorgement, forfeiture, and restitution.

Part II: “Near miss” resolutions. Where a company has fully cooperated and remediated but is ineligible for a declination, either because its good-faith self-report did not technically qualify as a “voluntary self-disclosure” or because aggravating factors warrant a criminal resolution, the DOJ will provide a non-prosecution agreement with a term of fewer than three years, will not require an independent compliance monitor, and will reduce the fine by 50%-75% off the low end of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines range.

Part III: All other cases. For companies that do not qualify under Part I or II, prosecutors retain full discretion. Fine reductions are capped at 50% off the United States Sentencing Guidelines range, with a presumption that reductions will be calculated from the low end for companies that fully cooperate and remediate.

What qualifies as a voluntary self-disclosure

To qualify for a Part I declination, a company’s disclosure must satisfy five conditions: (1) the company made a good-faith disclosure to the appropriate DOJ criminal component; (2) the misconduct was not previously known to the DOJ; (3) the company had no preexisting obligation to disclose the misconduct to the DOJ; (4) the disclosure occurred before an imminent threat of disclosure or government investigation; and (5) the company disclosed within a reasonably prompt period after becoming aware of the misconduct.

Under this test, disclosures made only to federal regulatory agencies (e.g., the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)), state and local governments, or civil enforcement agencies generally do not qualify as voluntary self-disclosures under the CEP. Given the CEP’s 120-day whistleblower safe harbor, companies must also be prepared to act swiftly when they receive internal reports of potential misconduct.

The executive order on overcriminalization

The CEP’s incentive structure does not exist in a vacuum. The Executive Order Fighting Overcriminalization in Federal Regulations (EO) directs federal agencies, such as EPA, to review existing regulations that impose criminal penalties, with the stated objective of ensuring that criminal enforcement is reserved for conduct involving a high degree of intent or willfulness rather than for inadvertent or technical regulatory violations. Among other things, the EO instructs agencies to identify regulations where criminal penalties may be disproportionate to the underlying conduct, and to consider whether civil or administrative remedies would be more appropriate.

This arguably creates a meaningful tension with the CEP. On one hand, the CEP establishes robust, concrete incentives for companies to come forward voluntarily when they discover potential criminal violations, including a binding commitment to decline prosecution when certain conditions are met. On the other hand, the EO signals that the administration views the criminalization of regulatory noncompliance as, in many cases, an overreach, and that DOJ’s enforcement resources should be directed toward cases involving genuinely culpable conduct. Practically, DOJ may increasingly deprioritize “minor” or “technical” regulatory cases while becoming more selective and pursuing higher-stakes matters involving clear knowledge, sophistication, and appreciable harm.

Notably, the EO does not address the criminal provisions of specific environmental statutes. The Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and other federal environmental statutes contain their own knowledge-based or “knowing endangerment” standards, and violations of those provisions remain independently prosecutable. Moreover, even under the EO’s framework, clear regulatory violations where the perpetrator knew what they were doing and that caused or risked substantial harm to public health or the environment remain squarely subject to prosecution. Where an individual acts with that level of intent, the resulting conduct can be imputed to the company. The EO therefore does not eliminate the risk of corporate criminal liability for environmental offenses; it reshapes the landscape in which that risk is evaluated.

A recent enforcement action underscores this point. On May 1, 2026, a federal grand jury in the District of Puerto indicted a waste disposal company and two individuals on five counts of violating the Clean Air Act and one count of conspiracy. According to a DOJ press release, defendants operated a commercial waste incinerator in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, burning unpermitted materials, using malfunctioning equipment, and exceeding emissions limitations beginning in August 2021. After an EPA inspector notified the defendants of the violations, they allegedly shifted operations to weekends and holidays to avoid detection, continued to operate after their emissions permit expired in September 2024, and persisted in illegal incineration through at least April 2026. The defendants face up to five years’ imprisonment and $250,000 in fines per charge, with the corporate defendant facing up to $500,000 in fines per charge. The case exemplifies the type of knowing, deliberate environmental violation, characterized by intentional concealment, repeated noncompliance, and appreciable risk to public health, that remains firmly within DOJ’s prosecutorial crosshairs regardless of the EO’s broader signals on overcriminalization. For companies evaluating their own compliance posture under the CEP, this prosecution is a reminder that voluntary self-disclosure carries its greatest value precisely when the underlying conduct involves the kind of clear intent and substantial harm that DOJ continues to pursue aggressively.

At bottom, the EO may be viewed as reducing the incentives of self-disclosure for “minor” or “technical” regulatory offenses, but more serious regulatory offenses, as well as statutory violations, are untouched by the EO and may warrant careful evaluation under the CEP. Further, whether a regulatory offense is “minor” and “technical,” on one hand, or “more serious,” on the other, is itself a question that frequently merits scrutiny.

Intersection with environmental and workplace safety criminal enforcement

The CEP also carries important implications for companies facing potential criminal liability related to workplace health and safety. Criminal prosecution of workplace safety violations has traditionally occurred through two primary channels: (1) direct prosecution of willful violations of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards that result in a worker’s death under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which carries misdemeanor penalties; and (2) prosecution under federal environmental statutes that contain “knowing endangerment” provisions, such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which criminalize conduct that knowingly places another person in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury.

DOJ has in the past pursued worker endangerment cases through its Environmental Crimes Section, often in coordination with OSHA. These cases typically involve scenarios where employees are exposed to hazardous substances, toxic environments, or unsafe conditions in the course of operations that are also subject to environmental regulation. The new CEP, by applying to all corporate criminal matters handled by the DOJ, now covers these cases as well.

Practical takeaways

The CEP represents a significant shift toward a unified corporate enforcement framework, but its practical impact must be evaluated alongside the administration’s broader enforcement posture – including the EO. Companies with environmental compliance and workplace safety obligations should consider the following:

• Weigh the CEP’s incentives against the EO’s enforcement signals. The EO’s emphasis on reserving criminal enforcement for conduct involving clear intent and substantial harm may reduce the likelihood of prosecution for minor or technical regulatory violations. Companies should carefully assess whether a given violation is one that the DOJ would realistically pursue before deciding to self-disclose, recognizing that the CEP’s benefits are most valuable where the risk of prosecution is genuine.
• Reassess internal investigation and reporting protocols. The CEP rewards early, voluntary disclosure, and the EO’s emphasis on intent-based enforcement makes it critical for companies to assess the nature and severity of potential violations that could be promptly self-disclosed under the CEP before deciding how to respond. Internal reporting systems and escalation procedures should be robust enough to identify potential criminal violations promptly.

Client Alert 2026-106