Certain information generated by your company, even the results of entire investigations, may be legally protected from exposure to people outside the company. While this seems like the holy grail to executives worried about nosey media, plaintiffs’ counsel or intrusive regulators finding the company’s dirty laundry, the protections are limited and can only be applied in particular situations. Recent lawsuits have shown that attempts to apply the protections too broadly may lead to disaster.
U.S. law provides privileges to protect legal work and advice. The first of these is the privilege accorded to clients when consulting with their lawyers. Since ancient times, an attorney cannot be forced to reveal to any third party what a client told that attorney, or the advice returned, except in very specific circumstances. The privilege exists where there is an attorney-client relationship for matters where the client is seeking legal advice. The attorney may not volunteer information about the privileged discussion against the client’s wishes and neither the client nor the attorney may be compelled by a court to divulge the contents of the discussion.
Of course, the attorney-client privilege only applies to discussions made in confidence, so public utterances don’t count. This privilege protects communications made when seeking legal advice; it does not protect the underlying information. An executive who cooked the company’s books cannot hide this fact by...
MUNCIE, IN — A Muncie man has been charged in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis with filing false COVID-19 claims. Gregory Vernon Dupree II, 38, in a federal indictment has been charged with eigh...