DOJ’s Fraud Division Directs Broader Charging Strategies and Earlier Asset Seizures in New Memorandum
The U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) National Fraud Enforcement Division has issued a new directive calling for more aggressive fraud investigations and prosecutions, including broader charging strategies, earlier asset seizures, and increased use of cooperating witnesses. Released on October 8, 2026, Directive 26-13 builds on the Division’s recently announced enforcement priorities and provides prosecutors with specific instructions for pursuing fraud cases.
The Directive instructs prosecutors to consider tax, securities, and consumer fraud charges alongside traditional fraud offenses, while emphasizing the use of asset freezes, forfeiture proceedings, and other measures to disrupt suspected misconduct before criminal charges are filed. It also encourages proactive investigations through data analysis, cooperating insiders, and undercover operations, and directs prosecutors to seek stronger sentences where warranted.
Although the Directive does not create new criminal offenses or expand DOJ’s existing authority, it signals a more coordinated and aggressive approach to fraud enforcement. Companies operating in priority sectors, including health care, government contracting, and trade, should assess potential exposure across multiple legal regimes, prepare for enforcement actions that could disrupt operations before indictment, and evaluate credible allegations promptly, particularly where voluntary self-disclosure may be an option. Click here for the full post.
DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division Issues First Corporate Enforcement Priorities
On October 1, 2026, Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald issued Directive 26-12, “Corporate Enforcement in the Fight Against Fraud,” setting out the recently established National Fraud Enforcement Division’s corporate enforcement strategy. The Directive calls for an “aggressive, all-tools approach” to corporate fraud and identifies four priority areas: health care; fraud affecting public trust or the financial integrity of Americans and markets; significant tax and revenue evasion; and tariff evasion, import fraud, and forced labor.
The Directive also provides an early look at how the Fraud Division will decide which corporate cases warrant particular attention. Prosecutors are instructed to place “great weight” on ten factors, including management involvement, concealment from government agencies or auditors, misconduct lasting three years or more, conduct spanning at least three federal districts, and conduct causing harm to at least 25 victims or losses of at least $25 million. The Directive also formalizes the involvement of the Division’s Corporate Enforcement Section throughout corporate investigations and resolutions.
At the same time, the Directive preserves DOJ’s broader corporate enforcement framework, including the Department-wide Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy. It also directs Fraud Division leadership to develop additional incentives for whistleblowers—including participants in misconduct—to come forward with credible information. For companies operating in the Division’s priority areas, the Directive provides important new guidance for assessing enforcement risk, conducting internal investigations, and evaluating potential voluntary disclosures. Click here to read the full post.
DOJ Rule Filing Helps Make White Collar Fraud Enforcement Restructuring Final
On August 18, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice published a final rule formally establishing the National Fraud Enforcement Division (“NFED”) within DOJ’s organizational regulations and defining the authorities of its Assistant Attorney General. The rule largely formalizes changes announced since April, when DOJ created NFED and began reallocating fraud enforcement responsibilities between the new Division and the Criminal Division.
The final rule gives NFED broad authority over criminal fraud matters, including criminal tax, trade fraud, fraud involving federal funds, healthcare fraud, and related offenses. At the same time, the Criminal Division retains broad fraud authority, leaving DOJ with a more flexible jurisdictional scheme than the public sector/private sector division of labor described by Department leadership in recent months.
We examine how the final rule institutionalizes DOJ’s new white-collar enforcement structure, what it means for the allocation of matters between NFED and the Criminal Division, and the practical implications for companies facing potential exposure across both enforcement portfolios. Click here to read the full post.
DOJ (Re-)Expands Northeast Health Care Fraud Strike Force to Philadelphia and Charges 19 Defendants in Medicaid Home Care Schemes
On August 4, 2026, DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division (“Fraud Division”) announced a significant expansion of its Northeast Health Care Fraud Strike Force into Philadelphia. The expansion will reunite the Fraud Division’s Health Care Fraud Section with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania; in 2018, the same teams launched what was then known as the Philadelphia-Newark Regional Strike Force, before reducing its operations to Newark-only in more recent years. Nationally, since its inception in 2007, the Health Care Fraud Strike Force program has been responsible for prosecuting more than 6,200 defendants who collectively billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $45 billion.
DOJ Grants First Healthcare Declination Under New Corporate Enforcement Policy While Indicting Founder
On July 29, 2026, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that, consistent with Part I of DOJ’s Department-wide Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy (“CEP”), it declined to prosecute Campus Eye Management Holdings LLC and its wholly owned subsidiary, Campus Eye Management LLC (collectively, “Campus Eye”), a management services organization that provided billing and other services to an optometry practice and ambulatory surgery center. DOJ had been investigating Campus Eye for alleged healthcare fraud, including illegal kickbacks. This is the first declination involving a healthcare company under the new, Department-wide CEP. And it is only the second healthcare fraud declination under any voluntary self-disclosure policy in DOJ history—the first being the HealthSun Health Plans, Inc. matter handled by the same team (i.e., the Health Care Fraud Unit) when they were part of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, prior to creation of the National Fraud Enforcement Division (“NFED”) earlier this year. Click here to read the full blog post.
DOJ’s 2026 Health Care Fraud Takedown Highlights Increased Coordination and Data-Driven Enforcement
This week, DOJ announced the results of its 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown, which involved charges against 455 defendants, including 90 medical professionals, in connection with alleged schemes involving more than $6.5 billion in false claims submitted to Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal health care programs. The Takedown involved the participation of 50 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units and included cases in 56 federal districts and 45 U.S. states and territories.
DOJ’s Civil Rights Fraud Initiative Raises False Claims Act Risks for Healthcare and Life Sciences Companies
In a Reuters article, Sidley partners Jaime Jones, Kristin Graham Koehler and Boyd Greene examine how the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Fraud Initiative could create new False Claims Act (FCA) exposure for healthcare and life sciences companies that receive federal funding or contract with the federal government. The initiative seeks to use the FCA to pursue organizations that allegedly violate federal civil rights laws while certifying compliance with contractual, grant or funding requirements.
New Clarity Emerges on DOJ’s Fraud Enforcement Reorganization
In remarks delivered on June 3, 2026, at the American Conference Institute’s Global Anti-Corruption, Ethics & Compliance Conference in New York City, Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva, the head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) Criminal Division, provided the clearest public indication to date of how DOJ intends to divide fraud enforcement responsibilities between the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and the newly created National Fraud Enforcement Division (“NFED”).
Under the emerging structure, NFED will focus on government program fraud, i.e., criminal offenses involving public payers and public systems, including taxpayer-funded programs, while the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section will remain focused on private-sector market, consumer, and corporate fraud matters—a traditional strength of the Unit previously known as Market Integrity & Major Frauds, which will remain part of the Criminal Division. Duva further emphasized that the Fraud Section will be focusing on securities and major financial fraud schemes, global fraud, and prediction markets, and is actively looking to further build capacity by hiring talented lawyers.
The remarks largely confirm earlier expectations that DOJ would eventually provide greater clarity regarding the respective roles of the Criminal Division and NFED following NFED’s creation. We examine what Duva’s comments reveal about DOJ’s enforcement priorities, staffing changes, and the implications for future enforcement activity.