Sponsors (2)
This bill significantly increases public transparency and policymaker access to federal corporate enforcement data—helping consumers, investors, and oversight—while creating privacy and reputational risks for named parties, potentially reducing corporate cooperation with prosecutors, and imposing administrative costs on agencies and taxpayers.
The public, consumers, investors, and businesses gain a searchable, downloadable national database of federal corporate enforcement actions, increasing transparency and accountability of corporate conduct.
Consumers and taxpayers can more easily assess corporate risk and enforcement histories when choosing products or investments because the database lists entities, offenses, statutes, and outcomes.
Congress and policymakers receive annual analyses and recommendations drawn from standardized enforcement data, supporting better-informed lawmaking and enforcement policy to deter corporate wrongdoing.
Companies and individuals named in the database could suffer reputational harm from alleged or unproven violations being publicly listed.
Individuals and businesses could face privacy and confidentiality risks because publishing case documents and identifiers may disclose sensitive information (e.g., trade secrets or personal data).
Corporations may be less willing to cooperate with prosecutors if public disclosure of settlements or declinations could harm them, potentially chilling cooperation and complicating enforcement.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Introduced March 16, 2026 by Richard Joseph Durbin · Last progress March 16, 2026
Creates a public, searchable online database of federal enforcement actions that involve corporate wrongdoing and requires federal agencies to provide standardized enforcement data to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The Director of BJS must set interagency guidance within 180 days, publish the database within one year of enactment, update it as new information arrives, and deliver an initial and annual congressional report with analyses of recidivism, victim/public impacts, and recommendations. Also directs the Chief Data Officer Council to identify ways federal agencies can improve and standardize collection, digitalization, sharing, and publication of corporate-offense enforcement information. The measure sets deadlines and reporting obligations but does not specify new appropriations or program funding in the text provided.
Requires BJS to create and publish a public, searchable federal database of enforcement actions involving corporate offenses, plus recurring reports and data-standardization duties.