You can probably thank U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie of New Jersey for the latest addition to the U.S. Department of Justice’s policy manual. The change will end certain deals like the one Christie reached with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. in which the drug company, among other things, agreed to establish a business ethics chair at Christie’s old law school.
In a memo [.pdf] dated May 14, Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip told government prosecutors to avoid requiring a defendant to pay a third party unrelated to the defendant’s criminal conduct “because it can create actual or perceived conflicts of interest and/or other ethical issues.”
