On September 30, 2026, the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law hosted the inaugural Heartland Government Enforcement & Investigations Conference. The day-long program brought together federal prosecutors, judges, state regulators, in-house counsel, and private practitioners across seven substantive sessions spanning DOJ enforcement priorities, federal sentencing and discovery practice, healthcare fraud, legal ethics and artificial intelligence, state antitrust enforcement, internal investigations, and securities and commodities regulation. Below is a summary of each session.
DOJ Enforcement Priorities: A Conversation with the U.S. Attorneys
The morning opened with a fireside chat with the U.S. Attorneys for the Western District of Missouri and the District of Kansas. The panelists discussed the DOJ’s decades-long emphasis on coordinating civil and criminal enforcement in parallel proceedings. The panelists noted that courts have long recognized simultaneous criminal and civil investigations as permissible, provided the government uses each proceeding for its proper purpose.
The panelists also discussed the DOJ’s April 2026 creation of a National Fraud Enforcement Division, which consolidated the Criminal Division’s Tax Section, Health Care Fraud Unit, and Market, Government, and Consumer Fraud Unit under a single Assistant Attorney General and directed a substantial expansion of prosecutorial resources dedicated to fraud enforcement. They explained that each U.S. Attorney’s Office has designated a detailee responsible for administering the division’s mission locally, and they described proactively using government data analytics to identify fraud, including data shared through state-level fraud task forces and flows of financial intelligence under the Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering reporting regime. The panelists also addressed cases involving organized criminal syndicates and continued attention to state-level and federally funded benefits fraud, and they described the division’s broader priorities as including public trust and financial-integrity fraud, healthcare fraud, internal-revenue fraud, global trade and customs fraud, and corporate misconduct, with data analytics and interagency coordination identified as core tools.
On corporate misconduct specifically, the panelists framed a company’s choices along a spectrum from litigation and investigation on one end to compliance investment and remediation on the other, emphasizing that identifying what went wrong and investing in robust audit functions can help prevent recurrence. They emphasized that voluntary self-disclosure can have a substantial impact on how the government treats a company relative to culpable individuals who are not similarly forthcoming. The panelists also discussed continued growth in False Claims Act settlements and judgments, along with emerging enforcement areas such as digital-asset and AI-enabled fraud schemes and national-security-adjacent matters involving sanctions evasion and export-control violations, and closed with a discussion of the value of proactive compliance programs in reducing enforcement exposure and of the DOJ’s continued reliance on whistleblowers and qui tam relators, including data-driven relators, to supplement its own investigative capacity.
For more information on this topic:
DOJ Merges Criminal Fraud Units Under New National Fraud Enforcement Division
DOJ Issues Department-Wide Corporate Self-Disclosure Policy
DOJ’s New FOCUS Initiative Addresses Rising Number of FCA Qui Tam Cases Filed by Data Miners
False Claims Act Enforcement at Mid-Year 2026
DOJ Fraud Division Priorities Memo and Strike Force Expansion
Fall 2026 White Collar Review: Six DOJ Enforcement Trends to Watch
The View from the Bench: Judges’ Panel
The panel on the view from the bench consisted of federal district and magistrate judges from the District of Kansas and the Western District of Missouri to offer practical guidance on litigating before the federal bench in white-collar and government-enforcement matters. The panelists began with criminal discovery practice. The panelists encouraged counsel to meet and confer to resolve discovery disputes without motion practice where possible, consistent with local practice requiring such disputes to be raised with the court no later than 14 days before trial. They also addressed the constitutional disclosure obligations set out in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972), discussing ex parte procedures for addressing sensitive Brady and Giglio material and the use of protective orders to manage disclosure, as well as related frameworks including the Jencks Act, grand jury secrecy under Rule 6(e), and the informant privilege recognized in Roviaro v. United States.
On Rule 17(c) subpoena practice, the panelists described the standard set out in United States v. Nixon, requiring a showing of relevance, admissibility, and specificity, and discussed the notice and specificity requirements under Rule 17(c)(3), which apply when a subpoena is directed to a third party, as well as considerations unique to indigent, court-appointed counsel seeking to use Rule 17(c). On digital evidence, the panelists emphasized that Fourth Amendment probable cause and particularity requirements demand affidavits tailored to case-specific facts rather than generic “training and experience” boilerplate. Their discussion extended to restrictions on the scope and content of social media search warrants, the use of Stored Communications Act orders under 18 U.S.C. § 2703, device searches implicating biometric access and Fourth and Fifth Amendment considerations, and the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Carpenter v. United States on cell-site location data, alongside a recognition that case law on electronic-data search warrants more generally remains comparatively undeveloped. The panel also touched on handling classified information in litigation, including how counsel obtain appropriate clearances and credentials.
On sentencing practice, the panelists distinguished persuasive from unpersuasive defendant allocutions. They described the standards governing sentencing evidentiary hearings (Fatico hearings), including the defendant’s burden on mitigating-role claims and the financial-loss factual basis supporting a sentence, and flagged the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s fall 2026 amendments to the fraud loss table under U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1, which may produce different guidelines ranges in mid-range loss categories common in white-collar and healthcare fraud cases. The panelists also discussed professional license forfeiture as a sentencing consideration. Finally, they addressed the use of artificial intelligence in litigation, noting judicial concern about AI-hallucinated case citations in briefs and emerging authenticity questions for AI-generated or AI-enhanced evidence under Federal Rules of Evidence 901 and 702.
For more information on this topic:
Proposed Changes to Federal Sentencing Guidelines and Their Potential Effect on White Collar Cases
Healthcare Fraud: Enforcement & Compliance Panel
Following a mid-morning break, a panel on healthcare fraud enforcement and compliance was moderated by Jonathan Porter, joined by representatives from the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Western District of Missouri and the District of Kansas. The panelists opened with the evolution of materiality standards in the decade since Escobar, discussing how prosecutors assess whether alleged misconduct is material to payment decisions and how that inquiry has shaped investigation strategy. They described the growing role of data analytics in identifying fraud schemes, noting recent public statements by CMS leaders suggesting that only a small fraction of healthcare fraud is currently being recovered, while acknowledging practical limits to data-driven enforcement, including the challenge of distinguishing legitimate billing variations from fraudulent patterns.
A significant focus was DOJ’s recent policy on data-mining whistleblowers, announced after the DOJ observed that 45% of all qui tam cases filed since 2024 originated not from corporate insiders but from data-mining companies, many concentrated in PPP fraud matters. The panelists explained how prosecutors evaluate these cases differently from traditional insider-driven qui tams and discussed whether similar data-mining approaches will reshape healthcare enforcement. They also addressed parallel criminal and civil proceedings, describing how coordinated investigations leverage both criminal and civil tools to achieve stronger outcomes, with pill mill investigations offered as a case study in which parallel proceedings have produced particularly effective results through simultaneous use of criminal prosecution, civil False Claims Act enforcement, and administrative exclusion remedies.
On compliance, the panelists discussed the role prosecutors play in negotiating monitorship and corporate integrity agreements, emphasizing that these administrative remedies are substantive enforcement tools rather than afterthoughts to FCA settlements. They outlined how self-disclosures are assessed differently from whistleblower-initiated or OIG-referred matters, and explained the framework for awarding cooperation credit at resolution. Addressing a frequent question from defense counsel, the panelists confirmed that press releases remain largely non-negotiable even when companies self-disclose and cooperate fully. The panel concluded with a discussion of whistleblower best practices and the DOJ’s approach to monitoring qui tam cases in which it declines intervention.
For more information on this topic:
Year-End False Claims Act Roundup: Key Cases, Enforcement Trends, and What Businesses Should Do Now
2026 National Healthcare Fraud Takedown: 455 Defendants, $6.5 Billion, and a New Era of Enforcement
The DOJ’s Healthcare Fraud Crackdown: Six Convictions, Three Weeks
DOJ’s New FOCUS Initiative Addresses Rising Number of FCA Qui Tam Cases Filed by Data Miners
False Claims Act Enforcement at Mid-Year 2026
DOJ Fraud Division Priorities Memo and Strike Force Expansion
Ethical AI in Legal Practice
After a lunch break, Marcus McCarty of UMKC School of Law addressed the ethical dimensions of generative artificial intelligence use in legal practice. McCarty described a legal landscape shaped heavily by ABA Formal Opinion 512 (July 2024), whose analysis of a lawyer’s competence, confidentiality, and candor obligations when using generative AI tools has been widely followed by state bars and courts, and noted that several state bars, including California, have since proposed or adopted rule amendments addressing generative AI use directly. He also discussed how reported instances of AI-generated hallucinated citations in court filings have grown substantially since Mata v. Avianca first drew national attention to the issue, with courts imposing increasingly significant sanctions, including a canceled trial, multi-year suspensions from practice before a federal court, and, in one 2026 case, a state supreme court’s temporary suspension of a lawyer’s license after an appellate brief contained dozens of defective citations.
McCarty organized these developments around several Model Rules of Professional Conduct that firms and government offices alike may want to revisit as generative AI becomes more embedded in legal work: Rule 1.1 (competence), which requires attorneys to understand the benefits and limitations of the tools they use; Rule 1.6 (confidentiality), which bears on tool selection given that free or consumer-grade AI products may not offer protections comparable to enterprise-grade legal or business software; Rule 1.4 (communication with clients about AI use); Rule 3.3 (candor to the tribunal), increasingly enforced through Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11, state analogues, and a growing number of court standing orders requiring verification or certification of AI-assisted filings; and Rule 5.3, which extends a supervising attorney’s responsibility for nonlawyer assistants to AI tools used by paralegals, contract attorneys, and outside vendors. He also flagged practical considerations specific to government practice, including the possibility that AI prompts and outputs generated in the course of public business may be subject to public-records requests. McCarty closed with practical recommendations, including selecting AI tools with adequate privacy protections, maintaining open communication with clients or stakeholders about AI use, and investing in training, written policies, and human-review practices that catch errors before they reach a client or a court.
Antitrust Discussion with the State Attorneys General
The early afternoon featured a panel on state antitrust enforcement moderated by Mark Tobey, joined by a representative of the Kansas Attorney General’s Public Protection Division and a former state antitrust chief now in private practice. The panelists opened with the current structure of federal antitrust enforcement, noting 2026 leadership transitions at both the DOJ Antitrust Division and the FTC, a stated preference at the DOJ for merger settlements over litigated challenges, and continued priority on procurement fraud and healthcare-related antitrust matters. On the FTC side, they described several 2026 merger reviews, including a challenge to a medical device merger, an abandoned healthcare staffing merger, and a blocked construction-adhesives acquisition, alongside monopolization litigation the agency inherited involving online marketplace and social media platforms.
A central focus of the discussion was the growing divergence between state attorneys general and federal antitrust enforcers. The panelists described several 2026 matters in which state coalitions pursued mergers that federal regulators declined to challenge, including a media industry consolidation opposed by roughly a dozen states and an industry labor union, a television station acquisition challenged by states and a private plaintiff, and a live event ticketing matter in which some states settled alongside the DOJ while others proceeded to trial on monopolization theories. They noted that state attorneys general hold concurrent authority to bring independent claims under the Sherman and Clayton Acts, interpreted largely in harmony with federal law, and described factors contributing to states’ growing role, including expanded state antitrust statutes, new state pre-transaction merger notification laws covering healthcare transactions now enacted in over a dozen states with review periods ranging from 30 to 180 days, increased state enforcement staffing, and continued coordination through multistate organizations such as the National Association of Attorneys General.
Conducting Internal Investigations
Following a second afternoon break, a panel on conducting internal investigations was moderated by Jody Rudman, joined by Todd Gee, in-house counsel from a regional health system, and a representative of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas. The panelists outlined the arc of a typical investigation beginning with initiation, addressing why companies commission investigations, what general counsel want from outside counsel, and basic first steps, including assessing what is alleged, documenting that a legal review has been initiated at the direction of counsel, limiting the circle of people aware of the review, and taking prompt steps to preserve information. They cautioned against informal fact-finding before counsel has taken control of the review, and explained why early government outreach can be valuable.
On interviews, the panelists addressed the role of Upjohn warnings in clarifying that counsel represents the company rather than the individual employee, and discussed factors the DOJ has indicated it does not favor in how companies conduct and later disclose internal interviews. On document review, they discussed common pitfalls and noted that artificial intelligence tools are improving the speed and detail available to review teams. On privilege, the panelists addressed general considerations alongside recent court decisions affecting how courts evaluate privilege in the internal investigation context. Finally, on reporting, the panelists distinguished reporting to the client from reporting to the DOJ and discussed the DOJ’s Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy, which sets out a declination pathway for companies that self-disclose, cooperate, and remediate absent aggravating circumstances, a near-miss pathway offering a non-prosecution agreement and a 50% to 75% fine reduction, and a general resolution pathway in which prosecutors retain discretion subject to a 50% cap on any guidelines-based reduction.
For more information on this topic:
Sixth Circuit Protects Attorney-Client Privilege Protections in Internal Investigations
DOJ Issues Department-Wide Corporate Self-Disclosure Policy
Fall 2026 White Collar Review: Six DOJ Enforcement Trends to Watch
Securities and Commodities Regulation and Enforcement
The conference concluded with a panel examining the convergence of securities and commodities enforcement, moderated by Jeff Le Riche, and joined by Sarah Razaq Sallis, a senior enforcement counsel at a national securities exchange, and a director of regulatory affairs at a blockchain analytics firm serving government clients. The panelists discussed a March 2026 memorandum of understanding between the SEC and CFTC intended to coordinate the agencies’ jurisdiction over digital assets, while noting that the MOU does not resolve every open question about which agency regulates which tokens and activities.
A central theme was the role of self-regulatory organizations such as national securities exchanges, which the panelists described as operating a two-tier structure in which Section 6(b) of the Securities Exchange Act requires an exchange to demonstrate it can enforce both federal securities law and its own rules. The panelists explored the interplay between self-regulatory organizations and the current enforcement activity from the SEC and CFTC.
On the technology side, the panelists described the CFTC’s expanded use of blockchain analytics to trace digital-asset transactions, illustrated by two 2026 matters: parallel civil and criminal actions against an active-duty service member alleged to have traded on a prediction market platform using classified information about a military operation for more than $400,000 in profits, and the CFTC’s first corporate insider trading case in the prediction market context, involving a technology company employee alleged to have traded event contracts using confidential internal information for approximately $1.2 million in profits. They noted the CFTC’s position that such event contracts constitute swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act subject to its anti-fraud authority, and closed with a discussion of the CFTC’s March 2026 proposed rulemaking on prediction market contracts and its February 2025 self-reporting and cooperation advisory.
The panel also discussed the failure of the CLARITY Act and ongoing challenges identifying whether digital assets are securities, commodities, or something else entirely. Sarah Razaq Sallis discussed how this presents practical problems for entities such as credit unions who may offer investment products that accidentally stray into an area requiring SEC registration.
For more information on this topic:
Prediction Markets Under the Microscope: The CFTC’s AI-Driven Pivot to Insider Trading Enforcement
How SEC-CFTC Harmonization Is Changing Crypto Regulation: What It Means for Your Business
Well, Well, Wells: The SEC Reshapes Its Enforcement Program and Silences the Gag Rule
SEC Proposes Regulation Crypto Assets: A New Offering Regime for Token Issuers
CFTC Proposes Public Interest Framework for Prediction Markets: What Stakeholders Need to Know
New Rules, New Risks: Securities and Commodities Enforcement Update
What This Means for You
The themes from this inaugural conference may suggest a broader trend for companies and their counsel to consider: government enforcement appears to be trending toward greater coordination and increased reliance on data analytics, with potentially less tolerance for delay. In-house counsel and compliance leaders may wish to consider the following observations in light of the panel discussions summarized above.
Consider revisiting voluntary self-disclosure protocols. With DOJ’s declination, near-miss, and general resolution pathways potentially offering different outcomes, companies may wish to consider having an internal process for evaluating potential misconduct and whether self-disclosure could be appropriate.
Consider preparing for increasingly data-driven enforcement. Some DOJ and state regulators appear to be placing greater emphasis on data analytics and data-mining relators in identifying potential fraud. Organizations, particularly in healthcare and government contracting, may wish to consider whether their compliance monitoring could help identify similar patterns.
Consider reviewing AI governance and use policies. In light of the ethics panel’s discussion of Model Rules 1.1, 1.6, 1.4, 3.3, and 5.3, law departments and outside counsel teams may wish to consider whether their AI tools, training, and review practices appropriately address competence, confidentiality, candor to tribunals, and supervision of AI used by nonlawyer staff and vendors.
Consider monitoring state antitrust activity separately from federal enforcement. As state attorneys general appear increasingly willing to pursue matters federal regulators decline to challenge, companies contemplating mergers or acquisitions, especially in healthcare, may wish to consider factoring potential state-level review timelines and standards into deal planning.
Consider reinforcing internal investigation protocols. Early involvement of counsel in fact-finding, consideration of Upjohn warnings, and attention to privilege management may be relevant to internal investigations, as discussed by the panel in connection with recent privilege decisions.
If you have questions about these considerations, reach out to one of the authors or your Husch Blackwell attorney.
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