Government-imposed corporate monitors—once a rare occurrence in the U.S.—are now commonplace, not only with domestic regulators but also with regulatory agencies in various other countries, in connection with enforcement proceedings and prosecutions for criminal offenses such as anti-corruption violations and other misconduct.

In a series of recent prosecutions, the Department of Justice has reimagined “corruption” to target private, commercial conduct. In doing so, the government may have expanded the definition of the term “corruption.”

The power a prosecutor wields is awesome. We should take comfort that Justice Department policies and our criminal laws help prevent that power from being misused to satisfy public opinion.

If, as promised, the current Deputy Attorney General learns from the experiences that practitioners have had under the Yates Memo, and revises DOJ's policies to better serve the goals of fairness and efficiency, perhaps he will not mind as much when the new guidance is referred to, as it inevitably will be, as the Rosenstein Memo.