The headlines reporting multi-million dollar corporate guilty pleas often miss a point widely understood among white-collar practitioners: The driving force behind the corporate plea is often not the merits of the government's charge, but the corporation's need to reach a global settlement resolving administrative and criminal sanctions that could put the company out of business. Considering the role of prosecutorial discretion and the draconian consequences of a corporate conviction, corporations often have little choice but to plead guilty and cooperate with the government. Recently, the feds have raised the ante in this process by defining "cooperation" to include waiving the attorney-client privilege. Thus, corporations and counsel alike are forced into a Hobson's choice where at least partial waiver may be inevitable.
- October 01, 2003Laurence A. Urgenson and Audrey Harris
Although compliance is generally thought of in a regulatory sense, every corporation that could be involved in litigation needs to consider the implications of how and what information is stored. In a sense, heavily regulated industries such as health care, securities, banking, and commodities are in a better position since the specifics of record keeping are set out in great detail. All industries that interact with the government can assume that their time will come. Other corporations may not discover whether they are adequately preserving information until they are faced with a discovery request. In either event, failure to comply can have dire financial consequences.
October 01, 2003Gregory HannaIn the wake of the headline-grabbing corporate fraud scandals starting with Enron, the Justice Department earlier this year issued revised guidelines making a corporation's waiver of the attorney-client and work-product protections a factor in determining whether to charge a corporation for criminal conduct, including fraud. Under these guidelines, prosecutors may "consider" a company's willingness to identify wrongdoers, make witnesses available, disclose the results of its internal investigation and waive the attorney-client and work-product protections.
October 01, 2003Andre G. CastaybertWeb sites of interest to you and your practice.
October 01, 2003ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |The latest cases of interest to your practice.
October 01, 2003ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |How to Take the Opposing Medical Expert Witness' Deposition: A Step-by-Step Guide
October 01, 2003Elliott B. OppenheimThe latest news of interest to your practice.
October 01, 2003ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |Cases Built on Anger Million-dollar medical malpractice verdicts have doubled since 1996. They now make up 8% of all malpractice claims actually paid. This, at the same time that verdicts for the defense remain the norm and the number of lawsuit filings has actually fallen somewhat. Why? The quick - and partially correct - answer is that the cost of health care has skyrocketed.
October 01, 2003Lewis L. LaskaThe purpose of this article is to provide attorneys and expert witnesses with the information and knowledge necessary to help a judge or jury understand valuation testimony.
October 01, 2003Mike McCurley, Barry S. Sziklay and Brian W. Clark