By Chris Prentice NEW YORK, Feb 5 (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors plan to increase incentives for companies that cooperate during criminal investigations, including promises not to prosecute them, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan said on Thursday. Jay Clayton's remarks at an industry conference come as the Justice Department is scaling back corporate crime enforcement and refocusing on immigration and drug cases under the Trump administration. Companies need to know there is a specific benefit to cooperating with U.S. prosecutors in rooting out wrongdoers, Clayton said at the Securities Enforcement Forum in New York. That includes offering companies so-called non-prosecution agreements, or NPAs — deals that Democrats have criticized in the past. "Our approach is going to be: let's get an NPA signed as quickly as possible that calls for continued cooperation," he said. The initiative within the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York will involve an initial, conditional agreement in which prosecutors decline to prosecute the firms, said Andrew Thomas, Co-Chief of the office's Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force.  The change should yield faster recovery of funds for victims, he said. Clayton, an appointee of President Donald Trump, said the different approach to cooperation would benefit shareholders, too. He previously led the Securities and Exchange Commission, a civil regulator, during Trump's first presidential term, and focused on retail investors at the time. Retail investors continue to be among his top priorities on white-collar crime issues, Clayton said, noting he has an eye on misconduct in small-cap stocks, private funds and prediction markets. When asked if he foresees prosecutions in those so-called event contracts, he said: "Yes." Clayton also criticized past enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a 1977 law that bans companies that operate in the U.S. from bribing foreign officials. The Justice Department paused the law's enforcement last year and resumed it with a plan for a more scaled-back approach. Clayton criticized the law for putting the U.S. at a disadvantage to other countries and penalizing companies instead of targeting individual wrongdoers. "I hate corruption of foreign officials," Clayton said. "I hate the FCPA as applied." (Reporting by Chris Prentice; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Diane Craft)
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