One year after the Justice Department pledged to curb what many perceived as strong-arm tactics to push companies to cooperate with government investigations, the practices that spawned the policy change remain alive and well, legal observers say.
It was December 2006 when the department released the so-called McNulty Memo, which now requires federal prosecutors to secure high-level approval in Washington before asking a company to waive attorney-client and work-product privilege while the company is under investigation. The memo replaced its much-maligned predecessor from 2003, the Thompson Memo, which gave rise to complaints of a “culture of waiver” among U.S. attorneys and other federal prosecutors.
