On February 19, 2016, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brent Snyder spoke at the Yale Global Antitrust Enforcement Conference regarding the DOJ's corporate and individual accountability efforts. Snyder stated that while corporate accountability is important to promote deterrence and incentivize compliance with antitrust laws, the DOJ has been focusing on individual accountability to help accomplish the DOJ's goal of ending cartel behavior. Snyder noted the importance of Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates' memo, Individual Accountability for Corporate Wrongdoing, which outlines six steps DOJ attorneys are instructed to take when investigating corporate misconduct to ensure individuals are held accountable for illegal conduct.

Snyder explained that in addition to deterring future illegal activity and promoting compliance with antitrust laws, holding individuals accountable for illegal antitrust activity:

The DOJ has adopted internal procedures to ensure that culpable individuals are identified early in the investigation process so that the DOJ can bring cases against those individuals before the cases are time-barred. The DOJ is also conducting a more comprehensive review of culpable companies' organizations structure to identify and investigate potentially culpable individuals.

Snyder stated that since the early 2000s, the DOJ's prosecution of individuals has outpaced its prosecution of companies. In the most recent five-year period, the DOJ prosecuted nearly three times as many individuals as corporations (352 to 123).

Over the last decade, the DOJ has prosecuted high-level executives in major cartel investigations, including cartels related to:

Along with prosecuting more individuals, the DOJ is also obtaining longer prison sentences. Snyder noted that while the average prison sentence for a domestic antitrust defendant sentenced to prison was eight months in the 1990s, the average sentence has increased to 24 months for the years between 2010 and 2015. A prison term for a company president in the coastal shipping industry, 60 months, is the longest ever obtained for an antitrust offense.

The DOJ has also seen a rise in the average prison term for foreign defendants participating in international cartels. While the average prison term was just four months in the 1990s and eight months in the 2000s, it increased to 15.5 months for the years between 2010 and 2015.

Snyder stated that the Antitrust Division's Corporate Leniency Policy continues to play an important role in antitrust criminal investigations, and noted that since its inception in 1993, leniency applications have increased twenty-fold. Snyder explained, however, that even if a company is not the first to report (and therefore would not be eligible for protection from criminal conviction), the DOJ will still offer substantial assistance in mitigating penalties for those companies that cooperate against co-conspirators. In determining the level of assistance for each secondary reporting company, the DOJ considers the cooperation's:

Snyder noted that though the DOJ negotiates plea agreements with corporate offenders, culpable employees are "carved out" and not protected by that plea agreement. The DOJ reserves the right to prosecute those employees. However, Snyder explained that since 2013, the DOJ has not publicly named carved-out individuals and those individuals are not publicly identified unless they are charged. In deciding whether to prosecute an individual, the DOJ will consider factors including the individual's:

Snyder further noted that the DOJ will generally not include former employees in a nonprosecution agreement, and will not hesitate to prosecute those former employees if they were involved in criminal conduct.

For more information on the DOJ's leniency program, see Practice Note, Leniency Program for Antitrust Violations.