This article provides critical background on DOJ policy and practice, and highlights some of the steps corporate counsel can take during leniency or plea negotiations to secure non-prosecution protection for the company's employees as part of any antitrust corporate disposition.
The parameters set forth in the DOJ's memorandum have implications not only for the government's evaluation of compliance programs in the context of criminal charging decisions, but also for how defense counsel structure their conference-room advocacy seeking declinations or lesser sanctions in both criminal and civil investigations.
This article provides critical background on DOJ policy and practice, and highlights some of the steps corporate counsel can take during leniency or plea negotiations to secure non-prosecution protection for the company's employees as part of any antitrust corporate disposition.
Recognizing a Fifth Amendment privilege for corporations — whether through wholesale abolition of the collective entity doctrine or by recognizing some limited exception for custodians of smaller corporations — would not foreclose meaningful white-collar prosecutions, but it would restore protection of the Fifth Amendment rights of individuals who are sacrificed under the current bright-line rule. Will Justice Gorsuch help in this endeavor?
Analysis of three recent decisions from the Delaware Court of Chancery that provide useful legal insights for corporate executives and those who counsel them.
The International Professional Practices Framework released last year by the IIA is intended to provide guidance for internal auditors, by seeking to focus on core principles. The framework identifies 10 core principles that describe or guide what an effective internal audit function should focus upon and to what it should adhere.
While it remains unclear both when the regulators will invoke their authority to enforce the nearly limitless strict liability provision of the rules and how they will determine the appropriate remedy, the recent settlements and the SEC's handling of exemptive relief petitions may provide some clues.
Over a decade ago, a Delaware Chancery Court's footnote in <i>Credit Lyonnais Bank Nederland, N.V. v. Pathe Communications</i>, 1991 WL 277613 (Del. Ch. 1991), established the "zone of insolvency" as something to be feared by directors and officers and served as a catalyst for countless creditor lawsuits. Claims by creditors committee and trustees against directors and officers for breach of fiduciary duties owed to creditors have since become commonplace. But in a decision that may have equally great repercussion both in the Boardroom and in bankruptcy cases, the Delaware Chancery Court has revisited zone-of-insolvency case law and limited this ever-expanding legal theory.
The DOJ's Criminal Division issued three declinations since the issuance of the revised CEP a year ago. Review of these cases gives insight into DOJ's implementation of the new policy in practice.
The "right to associate" permits the insurer to work with the insured to investigate, defend, or settle a claim. Such partnerships protect the insurer and can prove beneficial to the insured's underlying case and ultimate exposure.
It's pretty shameful that in the current crisis we're seeing ransomware on the rise. It's even more shameful that organizations involved in fighting the virus seem to be especially at risk.
This article discusses the practical and policy reasons for the use of DPAs and NPAs in white-collar criminal investigations, and considers the NDAA's new reporting provision and its relationship with other efforts to enhance transparency in DOJ decision-making.
