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    Dec. 17, 2025

2025 in Review: White-Collar Enforcement the “Right Way” Remains a Priority

Each December, the FCPA bar gathers at conferences offering opportunities to reflect on the previous year and prognosticate on the year to come. In 2025, those conversations looked somewhat different from years past, after a tumultuous 10 months of executive orders, changes in DOJ staff, and new enforcement priorities and guidance. This article, the first in a series looking back at 2025, synthesizes comments made by DOJ leaders at two recent white-collar enforcement conferences about what it means to prosecute “the right way” and why the defense bar might want to watch what it says. Additional articles will examine how anti-corruption legal practices have shifted and morphed for enforcers, defense counsel and in-house experts as a result of the changes wrought in 2025. See “Matthew Galeotti on the LiMu Declination and What to Expect in FCPA Enforcement” (Nov. 19, 2025).

What the Millicom DPA Portends for Joint Ventures and FCPA Enforcement

Millicom International Cellular, an international telecommunications company headquartered in Luxembourg with a principal place of business in Florida, has agreed to a two-year deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) resolving FCPA allegations linked to its Guatemalan subsidiary, Comunicaciones Celulares. The settlement demonstrates that the DOJ is still pursuing FCPA cases, at least when there are links to narco-trafficking. It also highlights the risks of entering into a joint venture with majority ownership but no control. The Anti-Corruption Report interviewed practitioners from McDermott Will & Schulte, Ropes & Gray and Vinson & Elkins for their perspectives on the investigation and the resulting DPA, including what they indicate about the DOJ’s approach to FCPA enforcement in the second Trump administration. See “Assessing the Criminal Division’s New Enforcement Focuses” (Jun. 18, 2025).

FirstEnergy: Best Practices for Preserving Privilege in Internal Investigations

The recent decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in In re FirstEnergy Corporation (Decision) reaffirmed the seminal 1981 decision in Upjohn Co. v. United States as the standard for maintaining assertions of privilege and work product protection in internal investigations. In this second part of a two-part series analyzing the Decision, the Anti-Corruption Report spoke with investigation experts to understand what the current best practices are for good privilege hygiene. They provided insights on how to collect and preserve documents, conduct interviews and present findings to the client, as well as how the Decision may have impacted data breach investigations. The first part unpacked the procedural posture of the case and dissected the Decision to tease out its legal implications. See our two-part series on preserving the privilege for in-house counsel: “Communications and Common Issues” (Feb. 17, 2021), and “Internal Investigations and Depositions” (Mar. 3, 2021).

Antitrust Enforcer Insights on Red Flags and Compliance Programs

Compliance programs play a critical role in preventing white-collar crime and limiting the consequences for companies if wrongdoing occurs. They also serve an essential function in the antitrust space, where robust compliance can help mitigate significant legal and financial risks. This second article in a two-part series synthesizing commentary from present and former DOJ antitrust prosecutors who spoke at SCCE’s 24th Annual Compliance & Ethics Institute looks at common antitrust compliance red flags and DOJ expectations for compliance programs. The first article explored the current state of antitrust enforcement. See “How to Adjust Internal Reporting for the DOJ Antitrust Whistleblower Era” (Dec. 3, 2025).

Gen AI Chats Becoming Evidence: Law Enforcement Warrants and Subpoenas

Users should exercise caution before prompting ChatGPT or Claude, as generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) chats have begun to show up as evidence in criminal and civil cases. For example, law enforcement obtained the first-known federal warrant requiring OpenAI to conduct a reverse search using prompts to identify an unknown user. This article, the first in a two-part series on the emerging use of Gen AI chats as digital evidence, shares law enforcement’s views on obtaining Gen AI for investigations, explains the unsettled law around access to Gen AI use records and identifies expected conflict points to watch, with insights from Google’s former director of law enforcement relations and experts from Integreon, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Loeb & Loeb, McCarter & English, and Winston & Strawn. Part two will provide strategies for companies to prepare for a steady increase of government and litigation requests for Gen AI data, which will affect many businesses, not just the largest AI chat providers. See “Integrating AI Into the Five Stages of an Investigation” (Oct. 8, 2025).

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Women to Watch: Contributions, Achievements and Observations of Outstanding Female Professionals

To mark International Women’s Day, women editors and reporters at ION Analytics interviewed outstanding women in the industries and jurisdictions we cover. In this part, Law Report Group editors Jill Abitbol, Robin L. Barton and Megan Zwiebel profile notable women in data privacy, cybersecurity, private funds and anti-corruption law, including Anne-Gabrielle Haie, Jessica Lee, Micaela McMurrough, Laura Perkins, Amanda Raad, Madelyn Calabrese, Ranah Esmaili and Genna Garver. Enjoy reading their inspiring remarks here.