Over the past two years, the Justice Department, loath to be seen as treating the corporate world with kid gloves, began changing its approach, according to a commentary in the New York Times DealBook blog yesterday. Two prosecutors with specialties in white-collar cases joined the administration and helped spearhead the push: Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates, who created new guidelines for prosecuting corporate employees, and Leslie R. Caldwell, who took over the Justice Department’s criminal division. The changes started with a few big banks pleading guilty and built to a flurry of activity this week, when Yates’s new guidelines appeared to bear fruit. On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced the indictment of three former traders from some of the world’s biggest banks, accusing them of a conspiracy to manipulate prices in a currency market. The next day brought a guilty plea from Volkswagen as well as criminal charges against six Volkswagen executives for their roles in the emissions-cheating scandal, the first major test of Ms. Yates’s new policy. As soon as Friday, the auto parts maker Takata is expected to plead guilty over deadly airbags. But whether these changes set a lasting precedent is not up to Yates or Caldwell, according to the commentary. As expected, the officials announcing the white-collar cases are leaving the Justice Department.
