By Sarah N. Lynch and Chris Prentice
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Justice Department has decided to keep corporate monitors in place for military housing company Balfour Beatty Communities and Canadian lender TD Bank, amid the Trump administration’s ongoing review of the practice, according to two people familiar with the matter.
President Donald Trump’s Justice Department paused corporate monitorships in recent weeks as part of a review into whether some should be ended early, Reuters previously reported.
Companies are sometimes required to hire independent third-party corporate monitors as a condition of a settlement with the Justice Department to resolve allegations of criminal misconduct. The monitors are tasked with reviewing compliance policies to ensure the violations are remedied.
Although the review is ongoing, the Justice Department has decided that the monitors for TD Bank and Balfour Beatty should remain in place, said the two people, who were granted anonymity to discuss details that have not been made public.
Reuters could not determine whether corporate monitorships would resume at other companies under settlement agreements with the Justice Department.
Spokespeople for Balfour Beatty, TD Bank and the Justice Department declined to comment.
Balfour Beatty Communities pleaded guilty in 2021 to defrauding the U.S. military and agreed to pay over $65 million in fines and restitution. The high-profile matter also garnered scrutiny from Capitol Hill. The firm will still have to keep its corporate monitor that was agreed as part of that deal, the two people told Reuters.
A Reuters investigation in partnership with CBS News in 2019 found that the Air Force landlord had falsified records to boost its income.
TD Bank also had to hire a monitor as part of a 2024 deal that saw the Canadian firm become the largest bank in U.S. history to plead guilty to violating a federal anti-money laundering law.
The two sources and another person familiar with the matter confirmed the Justice Department has decided to keep that monitor, which has only recently been appointed.
The review is among a series of policy changes as the Justice Department curbs anti-corruption enforcement and focuses its scrutiny on drug cartels and immigration.
Companies with corporate monitorships include shipbuilder Austal USA, Scottish lender NatWest and crypto exchange Binance, according the Justice Department’s website and public filings.
Last month, a judge granted the department’s request for an early end to the monitorships for Glencore, the energy giant that in 2022 agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle foreign bribery and market manipulation charges.
It’s unclear how many others the Justice Department will keep in place. One of the people indicated that prosecutors are trying to determine how well-tailored the monitorships are.
Monitorships are widely criticized by corporate America as costly and burdensome, but proponents say they are often necessary to ensure that wrongdoers fix issues.
Trump’s first administration moved away from using them, but former President Joe Biden, a Democrat, reversed that policy in an effort to tackle corporate crime and repeat offenders.
Several white collar lawyers told Reuters they expect the Justice Department to step back its use of corporate monitorships, especially for resolutions involving Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges.
The Trump administration has loosened enforcement of the FCPA, a 1977 law that prohibits companies operating in the U.S. from bribing foreign officials.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Chris Prentice in New YorkAdditional reporting by Nivedita Balu in Toronto and M.B. Pell in New YorkEditing by Nick Zieminski)
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