Individual liability continues to be at the forefront of criminal investigations and the litigation that often follows. Throughout the past five years, the U.S. Department of Justice’s edicts on individual culpability have varied in tone and rigidity, but the underlying focus on individuals has remained constant.

On Sept. 9, 2015, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates authored a memorandum on corporate prosecution, now referred to as the “Yates memo.” The Yates memo, which memorialized the DOJ’s long-standing policy that individual accountability is one of the most effective ways to deter corporate crime, recommended an all-or-nothing approach that sent shock waves through the legal community, who feared that cooperation credit had been rendered an unattainable fiction.

Click here to read the full Law360 article written by Holly Drumheller Butler and Marc Raspanti.