“We here explore the treacherous path which corporate counsel must tread under the attorney-client privilege when conducting an internal investigation to advise a publicly traded company on its financial disclosure obligations.”1
So begins a recent opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, addressing a corporate executive’s claim of privilege over information shared with outside counsel during the course of an internal investigation. In May 2009, the authors addressed the provision of “Adnarim” warnings in corporate internal investigations and a federal district court’s order suppressing government evidence in a stock options backdating cases against Broadcom Corporation’s Chief Financial Officer, William Ruehle, based on the insufficiency of such warnings.2 In October, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit reversed the decision, adding food for thought for outside counsel conducting internal investigations.
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