Foreign corporations with a significant U.S. presence increasingly face this question—which country’s privilege law applies when their U.S. 
lawyers communicate with the companies’ foreign employees? The SDNY confronted this choice-of-privilege-law issue where a “principally” U.S. law firm conducted an internal investigation for a German company. In re: Ex Parte Application of financialright GmbH, 2017 WL 2879696 (SDNY June 22, 2017). You may read the decision here. Let’s discuss. More…
Category Archives: internal investigations
VW Avoids Privilege Waiver in Dieselgate Internal Investigation—Here’s How 1
May you disclose a privileged document to a government-enforcement agency and, later, successfully claim that the privilege precludes 
disclosure to an adversary in a civil proceeding? Generally, there is no common-law selective-waiver doctrine, but the SDNY, in In re: Ex Parte Application of financialright GmbH, 2017 WL 2879696 (SDNY June 23, 2017), found no privilege waiver when Volkswagen’s lawyers disclosed privileged information to the Justice Department under a Non-Disclosure Agreement. You may read the opinion here.
Internal Investigation into Emissions Scandal
Volkswagen’s 2015 emissions scandal—where it inserted software to circumvent U.S. emissions tests—is well known. VW retained Jones Day, which conducted an extensive factual investigation as part of its representation. Jones Day analyzed millions of documents and interviewed hundreds of VW employees.
DOJ Deal More…
Sweeping Privilege Loss—Baylor Must Produce Documents From Sexual-Assault Investigation
In a significant ruling that may exacerbate the continuing fallout from Baylor University’s sexual-assault scandal—and provide lessons for those conducting internal investigations—the USDC WDTX rejected Baylor’s “unsupported and unconvincing” privilege argument and 
ordered it to produce “all materials, communications, and information” provided to its investigating law firm.
The court held that Baylor’s intentional release of the law firm’s factual findings and recommendations necessarily disclosed attorney–client communications and constituted privilege waiver. Doe v. Baylor Univ., No. 16–CV–173–RP (W.D. Tex. Aug. 11, 2017). You may read the opinion here.
The Huddle
In an earlier post titled Baylor Univ. in Major Battle over Law Firm’s Investigation Documents, I set the stage for the Title IX plaintiffs’ motion to compel Baylor to produce documents provided to Pepper Hamilton, which it retained to conduct an “independent and external review of Baylor University’s institutional responses to Title IX and related compliance issues.” More…
