On May 1, 2020, the D.C. Circuit denied RPM International’s petition for a writ of mandamus to vacate a district court order compelling disclosure of interview memoranda prepared by outside counsel to the Securities and...more
In In re Alexander, a beneficiary filed suit against the trustee based on multiple allegations of breach of fiduciary duty, including an allegation that the trustee attempted to transfer the trustee position to successors in...more
In June, the South Carolina Supreme Court addressed waiver of the attorney-client privilege in bad faith refusal to provide coverage cases and found that, under South Carolina law, an insurer that asserts its subjective...more
The eighth edition of The E-Discovery Digest focuses on recent decisions addressing the scope and application of the attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine, spoliation, and discovery responses....more
The Federal Circuit reinforced limits on its own jurisdiction by rejecting an appeal brought by intervenor Anthony Levandowski in the much-publicized case Waymo LLC v. Uber Technologies, Inc., et al., No. 17-cv-00939-WHA...more
In In re Cokinos, Boisien & Young, a representative of an estate of a deceased attorney sought documents from a law firm related to an alleged agreement to share fees. No. 05-16-01331-CV, 2017 Tex. App. LEXIS 6911 (Tex....more
On July 20, 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in In re OptumInsight denied OptumInsight’s petition for writ of mandamus on privilege waiver. The court held that the District Court for the...more
On November 17, 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit published a precedential order denying a petition for a writ of mandamus to overturn a district court’s determination. In In re: Rearden LLC,...more
In this Fall issue of our newsletter, you will find a review of several significant legal developments. For example, our antitrust group reviews actions taken by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice...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
In 2014, the D.C. Circuit adopted a very favorable privilege standard — protecting communications if "one significant . . . purpose[]" was corporations' need for legal advice, even if that was not the communications' "primary...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
No Dog Days of August for the SEC—A Recap of a Busy Month - Why it matters: Who says there is a government slowdown in August? Not for the SEC. August 2015 turned out to be very busy indeed for the agency, which...more
For the second time in just over a year, the DC Circuit granted the extraordinary remedy of a writ of mandamus to protect a company’s assertion of privilege over materials relating to an internal investigation. In a...more
The scope of the attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine for internal investigation reports has once again been clarified by the D.C. Circuit in a False Claims Act case against defense contractor KBR, Inc. In its...more
Reversing a lower court decision, the D.C. Circuit recently concluded – for a second time – that certain internal audit documents are protected from disclosure by the attorney-client communication and work production...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
On August 11, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted a petition by Kellogg Brown & Root, Inc. (“KBR”) for a writ of mandamus in order to protect KBR’s assertion of attorney-client privilege over its...more
On June 27, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a decision in In re: Kellogg Brown & Root, Inc., an important ruling which confirms the application of the attorney-client...more
The attorney-client privilege has long protected attorney-client communications made during the course of an internal investigation. Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383 (1983). Of course, the privilege encourages “full...more
In a widely anticipated decision, today, the D.C. Circuit granted a writ of mandamus and vacated a district court order requiring the production of a company's internal investigation documents presumed to be protected by the...more