By Pamela J. Bethel On September 17, 2014, Leslie Caldwell, assistant U.S. attorney general in charge of the Criminal Division, addressed many key issues about the federal False Claims Act in a major speech at the Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund Conference in Washington, D.C. The Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund brings together whistleblowers who...
Author: blawgger
In-House GC’s: Their Crucial Role in Corporate Compliance
By Pamela J. Bethel What role should in-house lawyers play in assuring that corporate compliance standards are met? Should companies have a separate compliance department, or should it be part of the legal department and report to the general counsel? Mitratech, an Austin, Tex.-based consulting firm that works with corporate legal departments, just issued a...
A Big Win for Privilege in Internal Corporate Investigations
By Pamela J. Bethel Last May, we wrote in this blog that we hoped and expected the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reverse a district judge’s opinion and to permit companies to assert attorney-client privilege for internal documents created in the course of a bona fide investigation by inside counsel. If...
New Article: Putting Profitability Into the Pipeline
On August 14, 2014, partner Carol L. O’Riordan and associate Anthony J. Marchese published an article titled “Putting Organization, Compliance and Improved Profitability into the Pipeline” in the Utility Contractor magazine. The article notes that after a contract is signed and while work is proceeding, a company, such as a construction company, should name one...
Harold Charles of CEEPCO Receives 2014 Award From SBA
We are delighted to say that one of our clients, Harold Charles of CEEPCO, was selected by the U.S. Small Business Administration’s D.C.-area office as the Small Business Person of the Year for Maryland. Here is the release announcing this honor. SBA’s Washington, DC District Office Selects CEEPCO President Harold Charles as Small Business Person of...
When Is an Employee Not an Employee?
By Carol L. O’Riordan We have recently discussed provisions in the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) concerning the percentage of work that a small business must perform itself rather than subcontract out, in order to comply with small business self-performance mandates. This is the so-called limitation on subcontracting rule. A contractor must ask: What percentage of...
Privilege Is Necessary to Ensure Successful Internal Investigations
When a company undertakes an internal investigation of suspected wrongdoing, in-house attorneys are often the ones who do the investigating. Very often, in-house lawyers thus take a central role in a company’s compliance function, and one of the first steps that they take at the direction of top management is to conduct a no-holds-barred investigation...
Bethel Will Speak as Panelist at ABA Minority Counsel Program in D.C.
On May 16, 2014, from 8 to 10 a.m., Executive Partner Pamela J. Bethel will participate as a panelist at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association’s Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession. Ms. Bethel will represent the National Bar Association, a predominantly African-American bar group, at the session at the...
The Strange Case of the Paper-Napkin Conspiracy
By Pamela J. Bethel Recently, we explained, in the context of white-collar crime, why e-mail is a dangerous tool to use, even when you are not guilty, and why one should never be too complacent about what prosecutors may be up to. Here is another lesson: Even a seemingly unbreakable conspiracy can fall apart. All...
Beware of What Prosecutors Aren’t Telling You
By Pamela J. Bethel Last week, we wrote about a cautionary lesson from some pending white-collar criminal cases: Watch what you put into an email. Whether you are guilty or innocent, your words may come back to bite you. Here is another lesson from one of those cases, the New York state prosecution of former...