U.S. Justice Department headquarters in Washington. Credit: Mike Scarcella / NLJ

The U.S. Justice Department cannot continue to withhold the names of would-be compliance monitors who were ultimately not selected to oversee 15 corporate entities that reached deferred prosecution agreements, a Washington federal trial judge said.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras of the District of Columbia came in a pending public-records suit that challenged the authority of the government to keep secret the names of monitor candidates—and their associated law or consulting firms—that the defendant companies proposed to the Justice Department.

The records request focused on deferred prosecution agreements under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that involved, among other companies, Daimler AG, Alcatel-Lucent S.A., Avon Products Inc. and BAE Systems. Deferred prosecution agreements often require a company, at its own cost, to hire a monitor to make sure the terms of the deal are being followed. Compliance monitor contracts can run in the tens of millions of dollars.