Added Penalties for Worker Safety Violations: The Other Yates Memorandum

January 13, 2016  |  The Insider: White Collar Defense and Securities Enforcement

In September 2015, Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates issued a memorandum instructing federal prosecutors to step-up individual prosecutions for corporate wrongdoing. The much-discussed “Yates Memorandum” was issued in response to criticism that federal prosecutors had been lax in prosecuting individual executives for crimes committed during the 2008 financial crisis and has garnered a lot of attention from practitioners and commentators. White-collar lawyers and their corporate clients also should be aware of the “other” Yates Memorandum quietly issued at the end of 2015, announcing that federal prosecutors will look for ways to charge a variety of felonies in routine worker safety cases to take advantage of the greater penalties available under environmental and other criminal laws. [...]

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