Brian Benczkowski, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said the DOJ has sought to reduce the time it takes to negotiate resolutions by grounding proposed fines in U.S. sentencing guidelines and other objective criteria. The Justice Department’s criminal division is trying to limit protracted back-and-forth negotiations over the size of penalties when settling allegations of misconduct with corporations, an official said. “It’s going to be a number that’s based on the law and the facts as we see them,” he said. Mr. Benczkowski said the Justice Department planned to announce a new FCPA settlement this week that is expected to push the total penalties related to foreign bribery resolutions with corporations in 2019 to a record $1.6 billion. Write to Dylan Tokar at dylan.tokar@wsj.comCopyright ©2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Source: Wall Street Journal December 04, 2019 22:52 UTC