Although companies must typically submit voluntary self-disclosures directly to the Department of Justice in order to receive penalty mitigation credit with the agency for a potential trade or sanctions violation, that doesn’t mean DOJ will never take into account a disclosure to another agency, Bracewell’s Alamdar Hamdani, former US attorney for the Southern District of Texas, told Export Compliance Daily.
While Hamdani said he can’t “guarantee” DOJ will give a company full credit for disclosing to another agency, DOJ may look more favorably on that company for disclosing at all.
“If I was a prosecutor, that’s something I’d say: ‘You know what, you came forward to [the Bureau of Industry and Security] and you didn’t come forward to me, so you’re not going to get everything you want. But maybe I’ll give you some credit down the road based upon how we do things within this office,’” he said.
