DOJ Monitorship Policy Disappears

The Justice Department has pulled down its policy statement on when compliance monitors will be assigned as part of corporate misconduct resolutions, which seems as good a reason as any to catch up on all the news swirling around compliance monitorships these days.

The Justice Department had previously posted its policy on monitorships on the website of the Fraud Section, which historically has handled most corporate misconduct cases. The policy had originally been developed by Ken Polite, assistant attorney general during the Biden Administration, and was first posted in March 2023. It had been available ever since on a page that lists various policy documents, speeches, and other resources that corporate compliance officers would find useful. 

Well, now the monitorship policy is gone. You get a “Page Not Found” error when you try to read it.

 

Exactly when the Justice Department removed the policy is unclear. I had been checking the Fraud Section website every once in a while since the Trump Administration arrived to verify whether the policy documents were still there, and only discovered the monitorship disappearance this week. My best guess is that it was removed sometime after deputy attorney general Todd Blanche took office last month. 

We should also note that the monitorship policy does mention diversity, equity, and inclusion, the phrase that dare not speak its name in Trump times; it’s entirely possible that the department pulled the policy simply because of the DEI reference. (I have an inquiry into the Justice Department’s press team to clarify.)

All the other Justice Department guidance relevant to compliance officers — including, most critically, the guidelines for an effective compliance program — is still available as of today. Also, if you want a copy of the original monitorship policy, Radical Compliance has one in the archives and you’re welcome to download it for posterity.

What’s Up With Monitorships, Anyway?

That’s a good question, because we’ve seen conflicting evidence about how monitorships will be used in the future, if at all.

First, it’s clear that the new leadership of the Justice Department wants to use monitors less often than what we’ve seen previously. Blanche and his lieutenants are reviewing prior misconduct settlements that included compliance monitors, apparently considering whether to end some of those monitorships early. Indeed, the department already allowed Glencore to exit its compliance monitorship early, although that one was already slated to end next month anyway, per an FCPA settlement from May 2022. 

On the other hand, according to press reports, this same Justice Department did just decide to maintain the compliance monitor assigned to TD Bank as part of the bank’s mammoth anti-money laundering settlement reached last fall. So there’s one example of compliance monitorships not going extinct. 

Also remember that despite all the attention to compliance monitorships right now — they’ve actually been kinda rare in the last few years. The Biden Administration had no monitors appointed in 2023 or 2024, and only one in 2025 before Team Trump arrived. Indeed, the Biden Administration saw only seven compliance monitors appointed in its whole term, compared to 11 in the first Trump Administration. (Monitor appointments typically happen a few months after a misconduct resolution is announced.) 

What happened was that in the latter part of the Biden Administration, we saw a trend toward misconduct settlements that did not include compliance monitors, but did include regular progress reports that the offending company would have to make directly to the Fraud Section for the duration of its plea agreement. For example, that was the arrangement for Trafigura, Gunvor, and Freepoint, all of whom settled FCPA charges in 2023 and 2024.

So where does that leave compliance monitorships now? One possibility is that Trump Justice Department declares it will continue that approach: fewer monitors, more self-submitted progress reports to federal prosecutors. On paper that would look good, because it achieves the lighter enforcement approach Trump wants and lets the department claim that it will still hold corporate offenders accountable. 

In practice, of course, the department is gutting Fraud Section personnel, dispatching those prosecutors to pursue illegal immigrants or sanctuary cities. So even if the department does take this “progress report approach” (which, to be clear, is very much an open question), it’s not like anyone would be around to read those reports. 

Then again, less enforcement of corporate misconduct is what President Trump wants.

But Not So Fast…

None of this means that compliance monitorships will go extinct. 

For example, just today, the New York Department of Financial Services settled anti-money laundering charges with online payments firm Block. The company will pay $40 million in penalties and — wait for it — must hire an outside compliance monitor for one year to review improvements to Block’s AML compliance program.

For another example, a construction firm in Minnesota just settled a lawsuit accusing the firm of violating both federal and state False Claims Act laws by falsifying test results for the quality of asphalt the firm used in road paving contracts. The firm agreed to pay a $1.3 million penalty and retain a compliance monitor who will report to Minnesota state authorities. 

And we do have that case of TD Bank, which apparently will still have its compliance monitor in force for the next three years. 

So while compliance monitors might be seen less often, that’s not exactly new, and monitors aren’t likely to disappear entirely. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see state regulators and attorneys general (looking at you, California) increase their use of monitors to fill the vacuum created by the Trump Administration’s retreat on corporate enforcement. 

I guess we’ll have to monitor this issue and see what happens next.