A Shift Away from Corporate Monitors Signals DOJ’s More Active Role in Compliance Oversight

In May 2025, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced changes to its corporate enforcement policies, including revisions to the Criminal Division’s standards for the selection and use of monitors. While the new guidance on monitors affirmed that “monitors can be an effective resource to ensure that corporate offenders comply with the terms of a corporate criminal resolution,” the guidance cautioned how “monitors can also impose substantial expense and interfere with lawful business operations.”    

According to the guidance, moving forward, monitorships must be “narrowly tailor[ed]…to address the risk of recurrence of the underlying criminal conduct and to reduce unnecessary costs.” To that end, Criminal Division prosecutors are now instructed to consider certain factors when determining whether the imposition of a monitor is appropriate, including: (1) “the nature and seriousness of the conduct” and the risk of recurrence “that would significantly impact U.S. interests”; (2) other available regulatory oversight, either domestic or foreign; (3) the effectiveness of the company’s compliance program at resolution, including remediation efforts; and (4) the maturity of the company’s internal controls as well as the company’s ability to evaluate, assess, and make improvements to its compliance program.

Aligned with the revised standards for the selection and use of monitors, the DOJ conducted a review of all Criminal Division corporate monitorships. As the DOJ neared the end of its evaluation, Head of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, Matthew R. Galeotti, stated that the DOJ had “learned some important lessons” and that “the Criminal Division has proceeded with some monitorships but terminated others where circumstances permitted companies to achieve compliance with our agreements on their own, including by self-reporting, compliance certifications, and other requirements.” Notably, the DOJ terminated the monitorship of one company nearly 15 months early referencing that the government “exercise[d] its sole discretion” when determining to exit the monitorship.

More recently, on September 18, 2025, during a Global Investigations Review Live “fireside chat” event in New York City, Galeotti told attendees that moving forward, the “[DOJ’s] intent is to take more of a government active role in ensuring compliance, using [monitors] where necessary,” and to ensure that monitors have “proper oversight,” emphasizing efficiency.

Galeotti’s remarks indicate how the Criminal Division’s review of its corporate monitorships found that companies often described the relationship with the monitor as more “adversarial” than cooperative, highlighting how companies felt unable to have meaningful discussions with monitors due to the perceived interpretation by the monitor of any pushback or disagreement by the company as demonstrating a lack of commitment to compliance. Further, companies appeared to report that they did not believe that the monitor was adequately motivated to effectively achieve the company’s compliance objectives. With potentially competing aims of monitors prolonging their services and efficiently satisfying compliance milestones, the Criminal Division’s assessment of corporate monitorships suggests that the imposition of compliance monitors may not, overall, be worth their cost.

Key Takeaways

• Monitorships may be on the decline under the current administration. The DOJ’s new guidance on the selection and use of corporate monitorships makes clear that the Criminal Division is narrowing its criteria for when imposing a monitor may be appropriate. In highlighting the DOJ’s efforts to “strike the appropriate balance between the need to ensure effective compliance programs with the need to eliminate unnecessary burden,” it’s likely we’ll continue to see the use of monitors decline as well as the potential for the early termination of other corporate monitorships going forward.
• The DOJ is signaling a shift towards reclaiming compliance oversight once delegated to monitors. We could see this shift build on the DOJ’s recent trend of engaging compliance expertise, including through the DOJ’s former Compliance Counsel Expert as well as the Fraud Section’s Compliance and Data Analytics Counsel; however, current resources of the Fraud Section to take on additional compliance oversight obligations may be a question given the recent decrease in the section’s number of attorneys. Nevertheless, as referenced by Galeotti, the DOJ appears to be pursuing a more active compliance role and, in turn, moving away from delegating its oversight responsibilities to corporate monitors. To do this, the DOJ indicates that it will be assessing whether monitorships will reasonably outperform what companies are able to accomplish (e.g., through self-reporting, compliance certifications, other requirements) either (1) on their own or (2) in working directly with the DOJ.
• Robust compliance programs remain critical. While the DOJ has signaled a potential shift away from imposing corporate monitorships as part of post-resolution compliance obligations, this shift should not be interpreted as a softening of enforcement expectations. Instead, this shift creates a strong incentive for companies to invest in robust compliance programs from the outset in order to be better positioned to avoid the imposition of a monitor—or direct DOJ oversight. Further, companies facing potential DOJ action should involve compliance counsel early, working alongside defense teams when deciding to self-disclose wrongdoing or in response to a government investigation. Early involvement allows companies to proactively show the DOJ that it takes compliance seriously and that it can remediate effectively without the need for external intervention.

Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP’s White Collar Defense and Criminal Investigations team helps domestic and international clients navigate all manner of white collar, regulatory, corporate and congressional investigations. Our team includes a distinguished roster former federal prosecutors and U.S. Attorneys who served at the highest levels of the Department of Justice and at leading United States Attorneys’ Offices. Our team also includes Chambers Ranked  veteran defense attorneys, and alumni of the SEC’s Enforcement Division, the U.S. Senate, and House of Representatives.