Seeing a Business Opportunity for Firms’ Outside Overseers

Whether it is the billionaire Steven A. Cohen’s family office or a global bank, federal and state regulators are increasingly insisting on a monitor as part of the settlement of legal charges with firms.

And now, two former federal prosecutors who trained under Mary Jo White, the former United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, are setting up their own firm to tap into the growing demand for such supervisors.

The women behind the new firm, the Pallas Global Group, know a lot about this growing corner of the regulatory world. Bonnie Jonas was the deputy chief of the criminal division in the Southern District of New York, and Tiffany Moller was the assistant deputy commissioner and chief of compliance and oversight of the New York Police Department.

For more than a year, Ms. Moller was charged with overseeing investigations into the use by the New York Police Department of tactics like the chokehold. The maneuver was banned by the department 20 years ago but has resurfaced as an issue once again after the death of Eric Garner on Staten Island. Ms. Moller also oversaw the adoption of new protocols and pilot programs for the department, like the wearing of video cameras by police officers.

As a federal prosecutor, Ms. Jonas most recently led the criminal investigations of General Motors and Toyota, which both resulted in settlements with federal authorities. As part of the agreement, G.M. paid $900 million and Toyota $1.2 billion in penalties. Both companies also agreed to be subjected to independent monitoring of their safety practices, which have fallen under Ms. Jonas’s watch.

“In bigger, more complicated cases, those cases can only be resolved with an agreement that big companies are going to be reformed,” said Richard B. Zabel, former deputy United States attorney in Manhattan who is general counsel at Elliott Management, a hedge fund. “Unless you want a government official to sit inside the company, then you need a monitor,” he added.

Pallas Global will provide independent monitoring for companies across all industries as well as for government units like police departments, a growing area of focus amid a national debate over the use of police force. It will also conduct claims resolutions and provide administration services.

The monitoring of Wall Street firms has become a particularly lucrative new area for former prosecutors, some of whom are also finding work in beefed up compliance departments at hedge funds. Mr. Cohen, whose former SAC Capital Advisors pleaded guilty to insider trading violations, has sought to fill his new firm, Point72, with former prosecutors and F.B.I. agents. It hired a former federal prosecutor, Vincent Tortorella, and Kevin J. O’Connor, a former United States attorney for Connecticut.

Ms. Jonas and Ms. Moller first met working under Ms. White, now chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, in the 1990s, during Ms. White’s tenure as a United States attorney.

Before her 18 years of working in government, Ms. Jonas was a lawyer at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind & Garrison. Ms. Moller was a lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell and focused on criminal defense of large financial institutions.