Following President Barack Obama’s nomination this week of Loretta Lynch as the next top chief of the Department of Justice, many in Corporate America may be wondering what the transition will mean for the agency’s enforcement priorities.

If confirmed by the Senate, Lynch will assume the role from outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, with some big shoes to fill. Under Holder’s leadership, the Justice Department has aggressively enforced violations of securities laws, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, False Claims Act, and many other corporate fraud, securing record fines and penalties.

Lynch, who currently is U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, was first appointed to the role in 1999 by President Bill Clinton. She left two years later for private practice, joining the law firm Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells), where she worked on white-collar criminal defense and corporate compliance cases. In 2010, she was re-appointed as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York by Obama.

Since 2010, Lynch also has served as a member of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee, which represents the voice of all U.S. Attorneys and provides advice and counsel to the Attorney General on policy, management, and operational issues. She has served as chair of that committee since 2013. 

“It’s pretty hard to be more qualified for this job than Lynch,” Obama said at a ceremony announcing her nomination. “She has spent years in the trenches as a prosecutor, aggressively fighting terrorism, financial fraud, cyber-crime, all while vigorously defending civil rights.”

As a federal prosecutor, for example, Lynch was instrumental in helping to bring a resolution to the Citigroup mortgage-backed securities fraud case, resulting in a $7 billion settlement. She also helped secure a $1.2 billion settlement with HSBC and a deferred prosecution agreement for violations of the Bank Secrecy Act over the bank’s failure to maintain an effective anti-money laundering compliance program.

“Throughout her career, and especially during her tenure as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York—during both the Clinton and Obama Administrations—Loretta has earned the trust and respect of Justice Department employees at every level, in Washington and throughout the country,” Holder said in a statement. “She is held in high regard by criminal justice, law enforcement, and civil rights leaders of all stripes.”

George Stamboulidis, who served alongside Lynch as a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York, similarly vouches both for Lynch’s experience and credentials and as someone who is right for the job. “Under her direction, the Eastern District has prosecuted foreign terrorists, Mafia and other criminal gang leaders and members, international drug lords, white-collar criminals, and corrupt politicians from both major parties,” he says.

“Lynch’s leadership has been put to the test and she consistently excels, obtaining results based on integrity and setting a standard to which all leaders should aspire,” adds Stamboulidis, who is co-head of the white-collar and corporate investigations practice at law firm BakerHostetler.

Relevant to compliance officers, in particular, Lynch provided some telling, forward-looking advice during an interview with the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics last year: “If there is one message I’d like to leave with Corporate America, it is that the government actually does understand that things can and will go wrong, even where there is a strong compliance program,” Lynch told SCCE. “It’s how you deal with them that defines your corporate culture and informs me if you are serious about fixing the problem and preventing it from recurring going forward.”

“Compliance is the lens through which we view your company,” Lynch added. “A robust compliance program demonstrates to us that the company ‘gets it.’ Making your compliance program a top priority is an investment a company can’t afford not to make.”

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