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
Boards of Directors and management at companies of all sizes face a common problem: they need to make decisions that are best for the company and in order to do so they need to know the facts — the pleasant and the unpleasant...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
During a September 10, 2015 conference at New York University, Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Sally Quillian Yates announced new Department of Justice (DOJ or the Department) policy that could significantly affect the way that...more
On September 9, 2015, the Department of Justice issued a memo (“Individual Accountability for Corporate Wrongdoing”) to federal prosecutors nationwide implementing new policies that—for the first time—prioritize the...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
Over thirty years ago, the Supreme Court clarified how the attorney-client privilege applies to records of internal investigations in Upjohn v. United States, 449 U.S. 383 (1981). Yet putting the principles of Upjohn into...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