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Corporate Internal Investigations |
| The recent public focus on corporate scandal, and the government’s intensified efforts in the area of corporate crime and enforcement, have made this area of our practice more relevant than ever. However, our clients have recognized for many years the necessity of retaining outside counsel to investigate and make recommendations relating to alleged corporate misconduct. |
| Prompt and thorough internal investigations are critical to companies that need to respond to a government investigation or threatened litigation. Internal investigations also ensure that companies make fully-informed decisions about employee misconduct reported by whistleblowers or other private parties, before the government becomes involved. Our internal investigations are headed by former federal prosecutors and other former government lawyers trained with investigative skills necessary to promptly obtain accurate information through witness interviews and other investigative techniques. Our lawyers value their ability to present investigative findings in a clear and understandable manner to a company’s directors, officers, corporate counsel and other decision-makers. |
| We have assisted private and publicly-held companies in internal investigations involving transportation and worker safety, employee whistleblower allegations and securities fraud. For example, we recently completed a major internal investigation for Olympic Pipe Line Company, a joint venture of three major publicly-traded oil and transportation companies. After a disaster involving a spill of over 230,000 gallons of unleaded gasoline into a creek in a public park in a small town in Washington State, and the resulting death of three people, the company faced scores of private personal injury and property damage lawsuits, state and federal civil environmental investigations, a National Transportation Safety Board investigation, a federal criminal grand jury investigation, and administrative investigations and inquiries by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Our investigation conducted immediately after the incident provided a foundation for the company’s ability to fairly resolve the many lawsuits and other proceedings that followed. |
| As a part of conducting internal investigations, we regularly advise companies on appropriate responsive action. Our recommendations have included development of corporate compliance and/or safety programs – a corrective measure that is viewed quite favorably by government agencies that may ultimately conduct an independent investigation. In appropriate cases, we have assisted clients in making voluntary disclosures to government agencies in an effort to avoid or at least mitigate government sanctions. In many cases companies simply use our investigative work as a basis for litigation or settlement with private or government plaintiffs. In any case our goal is to minimize repercussions to the company and, where necessary, to advise the company relating to corrective measures to ensure against similar future events or misconduct. |
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