The Department of Justice last month issued a directive requiring federal prosecutors to create a review process for supervisory approval of requests for companies to waive the attorney-client privilege and work product protection. But this should not be interpreted as a weakening of the DoJ’s interest in obtaining privileged materials, according to experts.
The Oct. 21 directive, from Acting Deputy Attorney General Robert McCallum Jr., concerns implementation of the so-called Thompson Memorandum, which lays out factors that must be considered when determining whether to charge a company with a crime. One of the factors to be considered is the company’s “timely and voluntary disclosure of wrongdoing and its willingness to cooperate in the investigation of its agents, including, if necessary, the waiver of corporate attorney-client and work product protection.”
