Roger Clemens taught us another important lesson in dealing with an investigation. Never lie to the feds. Mark McGwire essentially proclaimed his guilt when he refused to answer questions about steroid use during his playing career at a congressional hearing. He may have lost in the arena of public opinion, but he will not have [...]
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Warning the Witness
At the Compliance Week 2010 conference, David Seide was nice enough to give me a copy of his new book: Warning the Witness: A Guide to Internal Investigations and the Attorney-Client Privilege. David co-wrote the book with Gary Collins, Managing Director & Director of Compliance at GE Energy Financial Services. Since the DOJ, SEC and [...]
Portugal and Ethics Hotlines
Under guidelines published by the Portuguese Data Protection Authority on the 1st October 2009, a whistleblower cannot make a report anonymously. I have to admit that I can’t read Portuguese, so reading Deliberação Nº 765 /2009 does not help me much in interpreting the limitations. (Google translate helps.) Most EU member states allow anonymous reporting [...]
Hiring Lawyers for Employees Under Investigation
Your company comes under investigation and specific employees are implicated. What is the right way to get lawyers for those employees? Assuming the company is picking up the cost of the lawyers, the company usually wants to have some input on the selection. A recent New Jersey case highlighted some of the issues involved for [...]
An Effective Workplace Investigation
The California Supreme Court in Cotran v. Rollins Hudig Hall International, Inc. found that for an employer to have “good cause” to terminate an employee, the employer does not have to prove that allegations of misconduct are true, just that the employer fairly formed a reasonable belief that they were true. So an employer must [...]
Ruehle Decision on Internal Investigations Overturned
The Ninth Circuit stepped into a conflict between former Broadcom CFO William Ruehle and lawyers at Irell & Manella. The disagreement concerned a type of misunderstanding on whether lawyers during an internal company probe are representing a singular executive or the company itself. At issue was whether Irell clearly explained to Ruehle that it was [...]
Associational Retaliation Claims
Most companies have some form of non-retaliation policy for employees who make a good faith report of a problem. But what if the company retaliates against someone else instead? That was the situation presented in a recent court case: Thompson v. North American Stainless. A woman and her fiancee worked at the same company. She [...]
Corporate Miranda for Internal Company Investigations
As in-house counsel are often the ones starting an internal investigation, they need to be mindful of the same issues that appear when outside counsel are conducting an internal investigation. I wrote about the referral for discipline in the Ruehle case and the malpractice claim in Pendergast-Holt investigation in Attorney-Client Privilege and Internal Investigations. It [...]
Conducting Investigations of Wrongful Workplace Conduct
Roy A. Ginsburg, of Dorsey & Whitney LLP and the blog Quirky Employment Questions, penned an article in the May/June 2008 edition of Business Law Today: Conducting Investigations of Wrongful Workplace Conduct. The first issue he tackles is whether employees are obligated to participate in a company investigation. He says the answer is yes. That [...]
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