When Donald Trump fired dozens of U.S. Attorneys last March, there was speculation that the main objective was to remove some, especially Preet Bharara in Manhattan, who might be investigating the president’s business interests.
It remains to be seen what will happen with such probes, but the move highlighted the importance of the more than 90 federal prosecutors around the country who pursue a wide range of matters on behalf of the Justice Department.
The vast majority of those matters involve cases against individuals, especially those accused of drug offenses. Yet there is a significant subset of cases brought against for-profit corporations and non-profit entities. The U.S. Attorney’s Offices (USAOs) are a key front in the fight against corporate crime.
The latest expansion of Violation Tracker contains more than 1,000 USAO civil and criminal case records with corporate defendants dating back to 2000. Together they account for more than $18 billion in fines and settlements.
Assembling the list involved examining the press release archives of all the USAOs to identify those that announced the resolution of relevant cases. Among these are numerous high-profile prosecutions of major corporations, including three dozen with penalties of $100 million or more. This group is dominated by banks (such as JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank) and pharmaceutical companies (such as Merck and opioid culprit Purdue Pharma).
Among the most common offenses on the full list are violations of the Controlled Substances Act (by drug wholesalers and pharmacies), the False Claims Act (by for-profit and non-profit hospitals), anti-money laundering laws (by banks and casinos), and environmental laws (by companies of many kinds).
The offenses with the biggest aggregate penalties are those involving the False Claim Act ($4.2 billion), fraud ($3.5 billion) and anti-money laundering laws ($2.7 billion).
While business cases were found at nearly all USAOs, they are far from evenly distributed. The offices with the largest number of corporate cases are: the Southern District of New York (Manhattan), the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), the District of Massachusetts and the Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).
In terms of penalty totals, the Southern District of New York is far and away the leader, with nearly $10 billion in fines and settlements. Massachusetts is second with $1.2 billion.
The USAO entries complement the cases already in Violation Tracker from the various divisions of Justice Department headquarters in Washington (Antitrust, Civil, Environment & Natural Resources, etc.). They also represent the last significant portion of federal enforcement activity to be added to Violation Tracker.
Our next objectives include the collection of data from state attorneys general and state regulatory agencies as well as private litigation, especially class actions (we’re already gathering information on major wage and hour collective action lawsuits).
We’ll also continue updating the data from the agencies already covered, and if any USAO (or other prosecutor) brings a successful case against the Trump Organization, we’ll be sure to add that to the Violation Tracker mix.