Understanding the boundaries of legal privilege in corporate internal investigations is critical. When counsel, either internal or external, misunderstands these boundaries, the result can be disastrous....more
In United States ex rel. Barko v. Halliburton Co. et al., a qui tam suit we previously covered, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals once again ruled that defense contractor KBR Inc.’s internal investigation...more
On August 11, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a writ of mandamus supporting the robust applicability of the attorney-client privilege and attorney work product doctrines in the context of False...more
The ability to preserve privilege for highly sensitive internal investigations conducted at the direction of attorneys is alive and well. In a closely watched decision on the scope of the attorney-client privilege as applied...more
In In re Kellogg Brown & Root, Inc., et al., No. 14-5319 (D.C. Cir. August 11, 2015), the Court reversed a district court’s ruling that KBR waived these protections by using materials created in the course of a privileged...more
In the ongoing saga which has been the subject of a previous post on this blog, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has once again found that the district court erred in ordering the production of the...more
In a recent post, we discussed the D.C. Circuit’s consideration of the District Court’s decision in U.S. ex.rel Barko v. Halliburton Co. et al., Case No. 05-01276 (D.D.C. 2014), which provided an alarming perspective on the...more
A D.C. Circuit decision (In re Kellogg Brown & Root, Inc.) has confirmed privilege over employee statements during in-house investigations. Can the world take comfort? This article examines privilege in the context of...more
A recent decision from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most important courts in the nation, reaffirmed that a company’s internal investigations—if structured properly—are protected from disclosure in litigation...more
On June 27, 2014, the D.C. Circuit granted Kellogg Brown & Root’s (“KBR’s”) petition for a writ of mandamus and vacated a federal district court order requiring KBR to produce 89 documents related to an internal...more
In one of the most important decisions of the year for corporate legal departments, on June 27, the D.C. Circuit held that a company’s internal investigation documents were protected by the attorney-client privilege where...more
Government contractors and other companies subject to internal investigation requirements won some relief from the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on June 26 with a decision that firmly reiterated that...more
The KBR decision should not be interpreted as a sign that internal investigations of regulatory compliance are privileged per se. Companies should keep the following principles in mind when conducting any internal...more