When a Company's Internal Investigations Are Later Discoverable
There's a great post over at the Corporate Compliance Law Blog dealing with attorney-client privilege and work product for companies conducting their own internal investigations. This will continue to be a hot topic for companies acting proactively to understand the extent of the company's exposure. Where attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine protects the internal investigation, the protection can still be waived by simply cooperating with a government agency's investigation. The big question is how courts handle selective waiver - whether a company can turn over some of its investigation, such as the final results, without opening up the entire process to discovery by the government or another party in a civil lawsuit. Selective waiver is a slippery slope, and the likely pros and cons need to be seriously weighed before moving in that direction.