In United States v. Ruehle, No. 09-50161, 2009 WL 3152971 (9th Cir. Sept. 30, 2009), the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a controversial decision by the United States District Court for the Central District of California, which improperly excluded from evidence in a criminal prosecution certain statements made by a senior officer to corporate counsel conducting an internal investigation that the officer claimed were protected from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege. The Ninth Circuit held that the corporate counsel’s alleged failure to give an “Upjohn warning” — which comes from the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383 (1981), and is sometimes referred to as “corporate Miranda warning” — to the officer does not necessarily bar the government from using the statements made by the officer to corporate counsel. The decision potentially has far-reaching implications for groups as diverse as government prosecutors, individual corporate officers and corporate counsel in connection with the conduct of internal investigations of alleged corporate wrongdoing.