More on Discovery of the Results of Corporate Counsel's Internal Investigations
What should corporate counsel say to employees during an internal investigation of wrongdoing? The White Collar Crime Prof Blog posts about a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals case that helps answer that question. Corporate counsel for AOL interviewed three employees as part of the company's investigation into potential accounting violations. Later, the company waived privilege and work product, handing the results over to the government in exchange for a deferred prosecution agreement. This also waived protection over the corporate counsel's notes from the three employee interviews, allowing the government to subpoena them as well. Since it was the company that waived privilege and work product, all of the corporate counsel's own statements were open to discovery as well. This is yet another lesson to companies and legal departments to be cautious in handling internal investigations, and in handing over the fruits of those investigations.