The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap Highlight

such tools as deferred prosecution agreements and nonprosecution agreements, deals that allowed companies to stay in business without taking a criminal charge. There were only five such deals in 2004. In 2005, after Andersen, the number jumped to twenty. By 2006 the number of DPAs and NPAs combined jumped to twenty-one. By 2007, as the next great era of corporate scandal in American history—the great mortgage-backed securities scam of the 2000s—was beginning to spill into public view, the number of DPA/NPA deals jumped to an incredible forty-one.