SEF Central 2024: Keynote Q&A Discussion with Brent Wible

A transcript of Zach Fardon’s interview of Brent Wible, Chief Counselor in DOJ’s Office of the Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division, from last week’s Securities Enforcement Forum Central 2024 follows.

You can find the video at Docket Media’s YouTube channel here, and the full conference agenda here.

00:00 - 00:44

Bruce Carton: Now we have our first keynote in the form of a Q&A today with Brent Weibel. Brent is chief counselor in the office of the assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice. He joined the DOJ in 2006 as an AUSA in the Southern District of New York and later served as Deputy Chief of Appeals for that office's criminal division. He also served in the White House Counsel's Office as Senior Counsel and Special Assistant to the President. And most recently, Brent has served in a number of senior roles at the DOJ, including Acting Co-principal Deputy Chief of the Fraud Section and Chief of the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section. Brent, really grateful for you to come out and join us today, thank you, welcome.

00:44 - 00:45

Brent Wible: Thank you.

00:46 - 01:05

Bruce Carton: And we have a fantastic moderator today, Zach Fardon, a partner at King & Spalding. Zach leads the King & Spalding Government Matters practice group. He serves on the firm's policy committee and he's managing partner of the firm's Chicago office. And Zach, of course, previously served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Welcome, Zach, and thank you for moderating.

01:06 - 01:45

Zach Fardon: Thank you. Thank you. And thank you all for being here. Good morning, everyone. I see a lot of friendly faces out there. It's great to see folks. I'm going to guild the introductory lily just for a moment about Brent, he hails from Owensboro, Kentucky, which if you don't know, super small town southwest of Louisville, pretty far southwest of Louisville, about population about 60,000. And he went from there to Haverford College, two years with the Peace Corps in West Africa, and on to Yale Law School. He then clerked for Judge Ross, E.D.N.Y., and then Judge, now

01:45 - 02:17

Zach Fardon: Justice Sotomayor, on the Second Circuit before joining the Southern District of New York as an AUSA where he prosecuted and tried some big financial crime cases and then moved on to the Justice Department. He also in addition to those titles that he's carried and by the way DOJ is great at a lot of things. Titles is not one of them. Chief Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division basically means he's second in charge of the criminal division within Main Justice. But among the other things that he's done during his time in D.C. He also . . .

02:17 - 02:53

Zach Fardon: did a stint at the White House Counsel's office from ’15 to ’17, and in that context, Brent led the clemency initiative, which is something I had the honor of touching during my tenure as a US Attorney, and I think was a very important initiative. So just a tremendously bright and passionate public servant who has come here from D.C. to join us today. Thank you for that and thank you for your service. We only got 27 minutes left and we have a number of interesting topics to cover. I'm going to start, and we're going to focus on . . .

02:53 - 03:23

Zach Fardon: what I think and expect is probably front of mind for most folks in the room, which is DOJ's new corporate whistleblower awards pilot program. I think most folks in the room at least are aware that DOJ has launched that program. It just launched a month ago essentially in August. But why don't we start with what is it, kind of how does it work, and why is the department launching its own corporate whistleblower awards program?

03:23 - 03:57

Brent Wible: Great. Very excited to talk about that, and thank you, Bruce and Zach, for the kind introduction. It's great to be with you all this morning. So you're right. On August 1st, the department launched its corporate whistleblower awards pilot program. Maybe I'll start with the why and then turn back to a little bit more about what it is and how it will work. So We've got a lot of experience with the whistleblower programs at other agencies, the SEC, the CFTC, FinCEN and the IRS, and the short version is they're effective. They incentivize whistleblowers to come forward and . . .

03:57 - 04:31

Brent Wible: report misconduct that might not otherwise have come to light, and they've allowed all those enforcement agencies to hold culpable individuals and companies accountable. And so, you know, in looking at all those programs, as effective as they are, they don't cover the full range of white collar and corporate crimes that we investigate at the department. So we wanted to try to fill some of those gaps. The other main part of the why we launched the whistleblower program is really to try to incentivize companies to do the right thing. With another whistleblower program that fills some critical gaps . . .

04:31 - 04:50

Brent Wible: in the landscape, we expect that companies, to the extent they weren't already doing it, should really up their game in terms of internal reporting structures and should really think quite seriously when they do identify misconduct about coming forward and telling us about it because now we've got more ways than ever before to learn about misconduct.

04:51 - 05:08

Zach Fardon: So filling the gaps, just sort of programmatically, or categorically I should say, what is it that the Whistleblower Awards program, what are those gaps that the department primarily is seeking to fill in terms of where other programs do not, aren't available for whistleblowers?

05:09 - 05:46

Brent Wible: Sure, so there are four programmatic areas that we identified as both gaps in existing programs and also real priority areas for the department in its white collar and corporate enforcement efforts. And so those are foreign corruption cases that fall outside of the SEC's jurisdiction. So a lot of the FCPA cases we bring involve US securities issuers, but a lot of them don't. And so we want to encourage whistleblowers with information about misconduct at non-issuers, foreign companies to come forward to us. Domestic corruption. So we've, across Main Justice and the U.S. Attorney community, have long aggressively pursued . . .

05:46 - 06:27

Brent Wible: domestic corruption. But I think it's fair to say that we've often focused on investigating and prosecuting the corrupt officials, and there is, in bribery cases, there's two sides to those kinds of deals, and so we wanna encourage people with knowledge of corporate wrongdoing involving domestic corruption to come forward. Various kinds of crimes involving financial institutions that aren't covered by FinCEN's AML and sanctions program. And then we wanted to supplement the department's qui tam program to cover healthcare frauds targeting private insurers. And so we've got a very successful, long-standing qui tam program that roots out a lot of . . .

06:27 - 06:39

Brent Wible: fraud on Medicare Medicaid, but there are tens of billions of dollars in fraud on private insurers every year, and people with information about those kinds of frauds. But before our program, we don't think we're adequately incentivized to come forward.

06:39 - 07:12

Zach Fardon: So in the FCPA context, in the healthcare context, taking it outside of the sort of public company issuer spectrum and applying it in the private context, which could be a very significant sort of, I think, opening of the floodgates in terms of information coming to the department, just in terms of practically what it means and how it works. You mentioned public corruption too, which is something near and dear to our hearts here in the great state of Illinois. But I do think, so what does the whistleblower stand to get by virtue of coming forward with information, . . .

07:12 - 07:18

Zach Fardon: and what are the criteria for being eligible for that whistleblower to get that award?

07:19 - 07:55

Brent Wible: So the way we've structured our program, we don't have a Dodd-Frank. So we don't have a statute that expressly provides for a whistleblower program. So we used existing statutory authority that gives the attorney general the authority to pay awards to individuals who come forward with information or assistance leading to civil or criminal forfeiture. So our whistleblower program is grounded in the department's forfeiture authorities and the way we have designed it in our program is that if a whistleblower comes forward with voluntarily, so before we've reached out to them in some fashion with original information, it's truthful,

07:55 - 08:11

Brent Wible: it's complete, and they fully cooperate with us, then they could receive an award from forfeited assets in the case of up to 30% of the first $100 million forfeited and up to 5% of the next $400 million forfeited. So pretty substantial financial incentives.

08:11 - 08:24

Zach Fardon: Pretty depending on the forfeiture awards, pretty significant potential financial incentives. I noticed that, and just to be clear, when you say original information, you mean information not previously known to the Justice Department.

08:24 - 08:47

Brent Wible: Information not previously known to the Justice Department. It doesn't have to be firsthand knowledge. I think our program tracks the SEC’s and the CFTC’s programs in this respect. It could be, it's gotta be information that we didn't previously know about. It could be information from a prescipient witness. It could also be information that the person learned from talking to others. It could also be an original analysis of existing information.

08:48 - 09:28

Zach Fardon: So the department chose to draw the line around eligibility for folks that meaningfully participated in the criminal conduct, meaning those folks aren't eligible versus they may have had a minor role that would allow them, for example, under the US Sentencing Guidelines to qualify for a minor role reduction. Why award someone who may have participated at all in the underlying misconduct financially by blowing the whistle? Because I do think that's a little different than what we see with the SEC and the CFTC in terms of folks participating in the unaligned misconduct not being qualified for whistleblower awards. So why is the department going that direction?

09:30 - 10:04

Brent Wible: So you're right, our program does depart a bit from the approach taken by the SEC and the CFTC in this respect. I don't have perfect recall but I think it's the case that under those programs a person could be culpable as long as they weren't convicted of a crime and still receive an award. So we've taken a different approach. We've drawn the line at whether a person meaningfully participated in a criminal activity. And you're right, the sort of flip side of what that means is if a person qualifies as a minimal participant under the U.S. Sentencing . . .

10:04 - 10:36

Brent Wible: Guidelines, so they're really among the least culpable people of the individuals involved in the misconduct, then they would remain eligible. So we were trying to strike a balance, right? On the one hand, We very much did not want criminals to profit from whistle blowing. As criminal enforcement authorities, that is not something that we were looking to do. On the other hand, we know from our own experience and from talking to a variety of stakeholders as we were putting together our program, that it's often the case that the people with the best information may have their hands

10:36 - 10:48

Brent Wible: a little bit dirty. So I think we were trying to strike the balance and where we decided to draw the line was that if a person really played a minor role in the scheme, then they could still be eligible.

10:49 - 11:18

Zach Fardon: Do you have any concern that whistleblowers, given that characterization, which is fair enough, but do you have any concern that whistleblowers will be worried about deferring to the judgment of the prosecutor as to whether or not they meaningfully participated in the underlying conduct versus played a minor role in the underlying conduct. That can be a nuanced distinction. Lawyers stand in front of judges in the guidelines context and argue that distinction. Do you have any concern that whistleblowers will not want to come in for fear of implicating themselves and being on the wrong side of that decision?

11:18 - 11:52

Brent Wible: So we have a few thoughts on that. So one, it was really, so in the lead up to announcing our program, we engaged with a lot of stakeholders. Other people throughout the department, folks in the whistleblower's offices at all the other agencies, whistleblower counsel, in-house legal and compliance personnel, outside counsel, academics. So we heard from a lot of people, and one refrain we heard quite a bit was that it's important to have as much clarity and transparency as you can. So we did want to, on this eligibility question, we wanted to attach it to a legal

11:52 - 11:57

Brent Wible: standard that where there's a definition in the guidelines, it's been litigated. So totally take the point that there may be stuff.

11:57 - 11:58

Zach Fardon: A minor role reduction definition

11:59 - 12:00

Brent Wible: in terms of, okay. There's still maybe.

12:00 - 12:03

Zach Fardon: So there's some jurisprudence around how you can think about it.

12:03 - 12:43

Brent Wible: Yes, absolutely. People litigate that issue, but totally take the point that there may still be some gray areas or areas where whistleblowers or their counsel may have some discomfort. So a couple of further thoughts on that. This is against the backdrop. We also have our fairly recently announced individual voluntary self-disclosure policy for individuals. So if an individual comes forward and reports to us, whether they're culpable or not, and it's new information we didn't know about, it's truthful, complete, we're going to give them a non-prosecution agreement as long as they satisfy all the conditions of . . .

12:43 - 13:16

Brent Wible: this separate policy, which we could get to in more detail in a minute. So if a putative whistleblower comes forward to us under the Whistleblower Rewards Program, they have that protection as a backstop. Yeah. So I think that should go a long way toward addressing some of those concerns. And I would also say whistleblowers walk into other agencies almost every day of the week without any of these protections at all. And I don't think there's been a long history of prosecution of whistleblowers who have come into . . .

13:16 - 13:52

Zach Fardon: those programs? Understood, and I do want to come back to the individuals non-pros pilot program, which is separate, but as you've just identified, there is some Venn diagram overlap potentially between the programs. But first, let me ask you this. I mean, a longstanding criticism of whistleblower programs generally, and certainly a concern, I think, in this context is that they arguably incent employees of companies to circumvent the compliance program of the company and instead go straight to the government in order to reap the potential financial reward of doing that. The department at the same time obviously cares

13:52 - 14:02

Zach Fardon: deeply about companies compliance programs and wanting those programs to be robust. So what has the department done to reconcile those competing sort of incentives?

14:02 - 14:46

Brent Wible: So you're absolutely right. I think this issue is the one we've probably heard about more than any other in our consultations, particularly with outside counsel and in-house legal and compliance personnel. So we did a couple of things. From the whistleblower's perspective, a whistleblower can make an internal report to the company through the internal reporting structure and as long as they come in and report to us within 120 days of that internal report, they're still eligible for an award under our program. Second and relatedly, if a whistleblower did make an internal report, that's a factor that would increase the amount of the award they would potentially receive. So we tried to create an incentive for whistleblowers to make internal reports.

14:47 - 14:55

Zach Fardon: And what about the company's incentive to self-report once they've received a whistleblower claim? How are you addressing that?

14:55 - 15:30

Brent Wible: So nobody could criticize the department for not issuing a number of new policies over the last year or two. So alongside our corporate whistleblower awards program, we also amended our corporate enforcement and voluntary self-disclosure policy in a way that's really critical in this respect. And what it says is, If a whistleblower who we've incentivized to come forward to the department under our program makes an internal report to the company and comes to the department, the company, as long as the company comes to us and makes a self-disclosure within 120 days, they're still eligible for the greatest . . .

15:30 - 15:48

Brent Wible: benefit under our policy, which is a presumption of a declination. And it's a real departure from our ordinary rule because before this recent amendment, if a whistleblower had come in the door to us first and then a company came in later, they could still get cooperation credit and remediation credit, but they wouldn't get that presumption.

15:48 - 16:03

Zach Fardon: So as I read that change to the corporate enforcement policy, the company has to come within 120 days of the whistleblower reporting internally the concern. But during that 120 days, only if the government doesn't come to them first.

16:03 - 16:04

Brent Wible: That's correct.

16:04 - 16:39

Zach Fardon: So we're, and obviously companies don't always know whether an employee, even if the employee has put a marker down inside the company, whether the employee has also put a marker down with the SEC or now DOJ. So what does the government coming to the company first mean? Is it mean issue a subpoena? Does it mean interview employees of the company? How is a company supposed to, because 120 days moves quickly, obviously when you're dealing with internal whistleblowers and internal investigations and the vagaries and complexities of that. So what does it mean if the government reaches out categorically?

16:41 - 17:17

Brent Wible: So certainly if we sent a subpoena to a company that would be a reach out. Short of that a phone call to counsel would constitute a reach out. If we started knocking on doors of employees and that word got back, I think that would send a clear signal to the company that we know about this and are taking investigative steps. I think that there are a number of ways the company could be put on notice that we've gotten in our report and are investigating. The other thing I would say on this question is for a company to reach out . . .

17:17 - 17:47

Brent Wible: to us and benefit from the presumption of a declination by making a voluntary self-disclosure, they don't have to come to us with having taken 55 investigative steps and have a good idea of what happened. It could very easily be a call to us to lay down a marker that says, you know, we haven't gotten our arms around this yet, but we got a report that there was X kind of misconduct. We're starting to look into it. And we would hope to be able to follow up. And so I think it would differ case by case. We'd . . .

17:47 - 17:57

Brent Wible: have to look at what the circumstances were. But if we got a call like that, it wouldn't be surprising to me if we gave the company a little space and said, OK, well, why don't you come back to us in four or six weeks or whatever makes sense.

17:57 - 18:36

Zach Fardon: Let me ask maybe a little bit of a nuance question on that front, because the reality is from somebody who's now in the private practice of law and have been for a number of years, often companies are reluctant to make those decisions, which can be very loaded decisions until they feel like they have at least a reasonably firm grasp of the facts. And so that can take months, at least weeks, often months, to discern. So if in the meantime, a whistleblower has notified DOJ under this Quipit Whistleblower Awards policy, pilot program, of the misconduct, . . .

18:37 - 18:55

Zach Fardon: the company doesn't know that. The company receives the whistleblower allegation internally at the same time and still voluntarily comes forward before being contacted by the government within those 120 days, will that company receive the benefit of the declination presumption or no?

18:55 - 18:59

Brent Wible: If I understood the hypothetical correctly, they still come in within 120 days?

18:59 - 19:08

Zach Fardon: They still come in within 120 days. But the government is already aware of at least the allegation of misconduct because the whistleblower's put his or her marker down.

19:08 - 19:10

Brent Wible: Yes, they will get the presumption.

19:10 - 19:48

Zach Fardon: OK, well that's helpful. So I want to come back for a moment to the individual. And again, to be clear, separate pilot program launched by, I think by the criminal division, as opposed to department-wide, launched by the criminal division in March this year for individuals who have culpability, who participated in the criminal conduct, or may have participated in the criminal conduct, but come forward voluntarily with original information and can receive the benefit of a mandatory non-pros agreement. Can you put a little bit of more color on kind of what that program is, why the criminal division decided to launch it back in March.

19:49 - 19:59

Brent Wible: Yeah, so as some of you may know, I think there are many US attorney's offices that have now done this, including the US Attorney's Office here in Chicago.

19:59 - 20:10

Zach Fardon: To be clear, it followed suit, essentially, since the criminal division did issue its policy in March. A number of offices, including Chicago, just last week announced its own similar . . .

20:10 - 20:41

Brent Wible: And to be fair we weren't the first I think the US Attorney's Office in Southern District of New York and in the Northern District of California, and then we issued our policy, and then a number of other offices have followed suit. But, so this policy in our whistleblower awards program are meant for people who sort of fall into different lanes. Right, so the whistleblower awards program where there are monetary incentives involved, that is for people who did not meaningfully participate in criminal activity. We want to incentivize them to come forward and the benefit we're giving them is the potential . . .

20:41 - 21:17

Brent Wible: for a financial award. On the other hand, If there is an individual who knows about corporate misconduct and has real criminal exposure and we're involved in a more significant way, we're trying to create incentives for those kinds of folks also to come forward and tell us about the crimes that we didn't know about previously. And the benefit we're offering to those individuals is a non-prosecution agreement. And to put an exclamation point on a point you made, as long as the person satisfies the conditions laid out in the policy, it's not a discretionary decision on our part. . . .

21:17 - 21:30

Brent Wible: We're gonna give that person a non-pros. So they've gotta come in voluntarily, so before we've reached out to them, it's gotta be original information, truthful, complete. They've gotta fully cooperate, and then not fall into one of the exclusions. They're gonna get a non-pros.

21:30 - 21:57

Zach Fardon: Sort of reminds me of the old amnesty, both IRS and antitrust amnesty programs. If you're the first in the door, it's really rewarding, a first in the door participant in corporate criminal conduct. So just quickly, we've got a couple other topics I want to touch on, but quickly, how's it going? Right? So you've had the pilot that you just described for six months or so and then the brand new, I know, the Corporate Awards program, but do you have any data that kind of reflect whether they're working?

21:58 - 22:24

Brent Wible: Yep, so under the NPA program, We've gotten dozens of submissions to date under the corporate whistleblower awards program, which I think we're something like six or seven weeks into. We've gotten tips from well over 100 individual tipsters. So I think with any program like this where you're soliciting input from the general public, there's going to be some kind of ratio of signals to noise, but we're getting good tips under both programs.

22:25 - 22:43

Zach Fardon: So speaking of data, just flipping the switch to a different topic, data-driven investigations, and particularly in the securities context given our audience, including the insider trading context. How are you, the department, seeing the use of data? And where are you focusing your data-driven investigative efforts?

22:43 - 23:20

Brent Wible: I think in some ways, this is of a piece with our whistleblower program and our non-pros program, I think we're looking at a number of different ways where we can have more ways to identify misconduct and as a result incentivize companies to come to us before we come knocking on their door. So when it comes to using data, in the criminal division at least, we've been really focused on data for the better part of 15 years, really started out in our healthcare fraud unit because There's an easily obtainable data set that you can analyze and look . . .

23:20 - 23:58

Brent Wible: for outliers, billing spikes, and aberrant behavior, and use that not just to enhance existing investigations, but to identify subjects for investigation and really jumpstart investigations. So over the past 10 years or so, we have a dedicated data analytics team that has done that work for a number of years. And over the last 10 years or so, we've expanded that focus to include misconduct in the financial market. So alongside the U.S. Attorney's Office here in Chicago, we worked a number of spoofing cases and resulted in, I think, nine corporate resolutions, some of them really quite significant prosecutions . . .

23:59 - 24:36

Brent Wible: of more than 20 individuals. In many of those cases, we're jump-started through analysis of commodities trading data. Again, sort of looking for patterns, collecting the data, analyzing it, looking for patterns of spoofing or other kinds of commodities fraud or manipulation. And over the last few years, we further expanded that use of data to look at the equities markets. And we've also been investing in both personnel and tools so that we can really up our game when it comes to data analysis. And in the equities markets now, you know, we're getting trade data, sweeping in SEC filings,

24:37 - 25:03

Brent Wible: public reporting, just market sort of pricing data, and seeing what kinds of trends and potential misconduct we can identify. And one of the main areas of focus over the last couple of years has been using that kind of data-driven approach to look for instances of insider trading by senior executives at companies, perhaps most notably through the use of 10b-5(1) trading plans.

25:03 - 25:42

Zach Fardon: It does make me think of artificial intelligence, but I'll come back to that as a maybe final topic in just a moment and ask you this. You just mentioned 10b-5(1), and I know the department a couple of months ago had its trial victory in Los Angeles against a former CEO and board chair that was exclusively based on trading during a 10b-5(1) window. Can you tell us, and I think afterwards, your colleague, Nicole Argentari, made a comment that this is the first but won't be the last of those 10b-5(1) prosecutions. Why is that important? Why is that an area of focus for the department right now?

25:43 - 26:28

Brent Wible: So it's one part of our broader white collar focus and we think it's really important in our white collar cases to identify misconduct by senior executives, whether it's in the insider trading space or a different kind of misconduct. And so we have focused on using our data analytics approach, taking an initial focus on 10b51 trading plans and trying to identify senior executives, in particular those who are charged with running companies who are misusing their position and using 10b51 plans to try to conceal and shield themselves from discovery. We think it's an important thing to do when you've got senior executives at companies engaging in that kind of misconduct to do what we can to try to hold them accountable.

26:28 - 26:48

Zach Fardon: So in the few minutes we have left, let me ask about artificial intelligence. And I recognize it's both an early in the curve topic, but also a huge and unwieldy topic on some level. But as you sit here now, how is the department thinking about AI? And what sort of excites you about AI? And what worries you the most about AI?

26:49 - 27:20

Brent Wible: So our Deputy Attorney General has spoken a lot about this. I think she's described AI as a very sharp double edged sword. It's got a lot of promise for positive uses in a lot of different ways, including in aiding us in our law enforcement mission. It's also got, I think, a great potential to be misused by criminals and other wrongdoers. So for our part, I think we've really just kind of scratched the surface on how we can use AI. I think the department have used it in some instances to try to triage all the millions of

27:20 - 27:55

Brent Wible: tips that come into the FBI every year. We've also used it to try to work through and synthesize information and data in some of the really voluminous cases that we have in cases, including in the January 6th investigations. But we're really, I think, we continue to be engaged in a lot of internal discussion at the department about what our approach should be. We brought on our first chief AI officer earlier this year to help us think through those issues. And similarly in terms of how criminals are misusing it, we're really only just beginning to see that.

27:55 - 28:33

Brent Wible: We in the criminal division have brought, I think, a couple of prosecutions to date against defendants for misuse of AI, and they were both cases where defendants had used AI platforms to create AI-generated child sexual abuse material, sometimes taking images of kids that they knew and morphing them into images of sexually explicit conduct. So we've had a couple of cases in that area. And just a few weeks ago, the National Security Division announced that they had seized, I think, 30-something internet domains that had been created by Russian state-sponsored actors to basically generate propaganda to interfere with . . .

28:33 - 29:04

Brent Wible: the elections here in the United States and that traffic had been driven to those propaganda websites in part through social media advertising that had been generated through AI. Relatedly, we've seen some bad actors create AI deep fake robocalls, providing misinformation about the election. So I think those are all top of mind. And of course, I think we're concerned about ways that criminals could use AI to commit all sorts of frauds, cyber crimes.

29:05 - 29:22

Zach Fardon: Deputy Attorney General Monaghan's speech at Oxford recently referenced AI being like a gun and that it can increase the danger of a crime. Do you expect the department is actually gonna look for opportunities to use abusive AI in the context of the crime to enhance sentencing?

29:24 - 29:45

Brent Wible: Yes, we have, effectively prosecutors across the department have been instructed that if they're working a case and they're prosecuting a case where AI has made the crime significantly more dangerous in some way, then we are to either seek out a sentencing enhancement if one applies, given the facts, or to advocate for a higher sentence under the 3553.

29:46 - 30:09

Zach Fardon: So in our last minute, time passes too quickly for my taste. But in our last minute, coming back to compliance and AI and compliance, because yesterday there were some amendments to the department's compliance program evaluation policy. Can you speak to that and how that addresses the AI issue when it comes to what companies need to be thinking about it doing with regard to compliance?

30:10 - 30:40

Brent Wible: Yeah, so just in a couple of seconds, yesterday for the first time in I think about a year and a half, we updated our document, the evaluation of corporate compliance programs. And we made a few updates to it but one of them was to include a series of questions we would expect to ask companies we were in resolution discussions with about how they use AI. We would ask about the technologies they're using, including AI, ask if they've done risk assessments about the risks the company may be facing as a result of that use, steps they're taking

30:40 - 30:55

Brent Wible: to mitigate those risks, and generally what their approach is to ensure that the company's using AI as intended and consistent with the company's code of conduct. So that's one of the new additions to our compliance.

30:55 - 31:12

Zach Fardon: I noticed that another one, and I'll leave you with this, that another one was ensuring that companies are scrutinizing and leveraging data to make sure that their own compliance programs are effective and efficacious, right? And so I do think that's a significant add-on as well to that.

31:12 - 31:36

Brent Wible: Yeah, I mean, just as we're trying to do better in our own use of data. We expect companies to do that too. And so we have added some questions to our ECCP to try to figure it out, how companies are using data. In particular, we're going to be looking at whether there's some kind of imbalance. Are companies using data really well on the business side, but not so well on the compliance side, that's the thing that we'd be interested in.

31:36 - 31:48

Zach Fardon: So we're out of time. As somebody who's spent a dozen years with the Justice Department, I know how hard your job is, how hard you work. I'm genuinely grateful for your service ongoing, and thank you guys for being a part of this.

31:48 - 31:50

Brent Wible: Thank you all. Appreciate it.