Companies that prepare internal reports at the request of the Department of Justice, discussing the likelihood of criminal violations, should be able to benefit from absolute privilege that shields them from defamation suits brought by people named in the reports. That is what the law should be; otherwise, companies would not feel free to conduct...
Category: Corporate Governance
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...
Is it Safer to Discuss Some Things with Outside Counsel? (Pt. 3)
By Carol O’Riordan and Jay Shah In our last blog post, we discussed a recent New Mexico case in which the court wrestled with the question of how to determine whether a communication was primarily made for business purposes or for legal purposes. This question was important because it was the deciding factor in showing...
Who Should Handle That Crucial Internal Investigation?
By Pamela J. Bethel When a company faces the necessary task of conducting a thorough internal investigation into some form of wrongdoing or questionable behavior that has been uncovered in the company’s past, to whom should it turn to handle the investigation? The subject matter of the probe might be an allegation of illegal payments...
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...
Needed: Broad Definition of ‘Whistleblower’ Under Dodd-Frank
By Pamela J. Bethel Jordan A. Thomas, formerly a leading SEC attorney who was involved in developing the agency’s whistleblower program and now chairman of the whistleblower representation practice at Labaton Sucharow, as well as Vanessa De Simone, an associate in the firm’s whistleblower representation practice, recently wrote an important op-ed article in the National...
Lawyers for Utilities Contractors: An Underused Asset? (Part 2)
By Carol L. O’Riordan In an earlier post, I discussed several good reasons why a utility contractor might wish to rely on a lawyer for a wide variety of tasks. Lawyers, after all, are trained in the skills of observation, questioning, problem solving, and communicating. Here are some specific ways in which lawyers can...
Investors Join Push for Women on Corporate Boards
Advocates for more women on corporate boards have conducted economic studies on the effect of diversity on boards. They have spoken out, issued press releases, organized peer groups, taught courses, and held seminars. Why not use the power of investment as well? Earlier this month, a group of institutional investors did just that. Investors controlling...
Why So Few Women on Corporate Boards? Some Experts Speak Out
Recently, the AS/COA Women’s Hemispheric Network, which promotes the economic empowerment of women in business and other professions in the Western Hemisphere, asked six senior-level women why the appointment of women to corporate boards has been so slow in coming and what needs to be done to pave the way for increased equality in the boardroom....
Study Gives New Twist on Importance of Women on Corporate Boards
By Pamela J. Bethel We have written before about the importance of increasing the number of women on the boards of major corporations from the 15 percent level that seems to have stubbornly remained with us. We and others have said on many occasions that placing more women on boards isn’t just the right thing...