White-Collar Criminal Law

Authors: Gregory Herrold and Eric Boden

Tackling complex and evolving issues surrounding sentencing in federal fraud cases, a panel of distinguished jurists and white collar practitioners shared their thoughts at this year’s ABA White Collar Conference in San Diego, California in a discussion titled: “Effective Sentencing Advocacy – Guidelines, Mitigation, and Data.” The panel, including U.S. District Court Judges Charles Breyer and Trina Thompson of the Northern District of California, explored mitigation strategies defense counsel should implement early in a client’s criminal justice process to most effectively advocate for an appropriate sentence.

On December 2, 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the launch of a new unit within the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, called the Health & Safety Unit (HSU). The creation of this unit comes on the heels of the DOJ disbanding the Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch in September of this year, a group that utilized both civil and criminal enforcement in the consumer protection area. The new unit coincides with the DOJ’s restructuring efforts in this space. According to the DOJ, the HSU will serve two main purposes: (i) protecting the food and drug supply for consumers and (ii) enforcing consumer product safety laws.

Read the full Alert on the Duane Morris LLP website.

On October 14, 2025, a coalition of 13 state attorneys general, including those from California, New York, Massachusetts and Illinois, filed a motion seeking to intervene in the Tunney Act review by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) settlement that allowed the $14 billion merger between Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Juniper Networks to proceed.

Read the full Alert on the Duane Morris website.