In United States v. Fokker Services B.V., 818 F.3d 733 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (No. 15-3016), the D.C. Circuit found that there are significant limitations on the ability of a district court to reject a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) agreed to by prosecutors and a defendant.  The case arose out of a corporation’s voluntary disclosure to the U.S. Departments of Treasury and Commerce of conduct that potentially violated federal sanctions and export control laws relating to Iran, Sudan and Burma.  After investigating the matter for four years, prosecutors reached an agreement with the corporation in which charges would be filed against the corporation but would be dismissed after 18 months if the corporation continued to cooperate and implemented a substantial compliance program.  Upon the filing of the charges, the parties moved in the district court for an order suspending the running of time under the Speedy Trial Act, pursuant to that Act’s exclusion of any period during which the government defers prosecution for the purpose of allowing the defendant to demonstrate good conduct.  The district court denied that motion, expressing concern that the government had failed to prosecute any individuals and that approval of an agreement in which the defendant had been “prosecuted so anemically for engaging in such egregious conduct” would “promote disrespect for the law.”  The court also noted that certain employees had been permitted to remain with the company, that the DPA did not require an independent monitor, and that the agreed fine did not exceed the revenues the corporation gained from the transactions.  The court concluded that the DPA was an “[in]appropriate exercise of prosecutorial discretion.”  Both the United States and the defendant appealed that order, and the Court of Appeals appointed amicus curiae counsel to represent the position of the district court.  The Court of Appeals found the denial of the motion to be improper, holding that the Speedy Trial Act gives a court no authority to withhold exclusion of time based on concerns that the government should bring different charges or should charge different defendants.  The court found that the Act was passed against a backdrop of long-settled understandings about the independence of the Executive with regard to charging decisions and that nothing in the Act suggests any intention to subvert those principles and enable the Judiciary to second-guess the Executive’s exercise of discretion over the initiation and dismissal of criminal charges.  Accordingly, the Court of Appeals granted the government’s petition for a writ of mandamus.