Corporate & Securities Law

General Counsel Liability

By John Wallbillich

The Fulton County Daily Report has an excellent summary of the state of GC liability. The list of those involved isn’t large in an absolute sense, but is growing.

According to Roscoe C. Howard Jr. of Troutman Sanders (and a former U.S. Attorney):

“There was a time, quite frankly, when you could be a director or officer and hide behind a corporate shield. Individuals weren’t held to any law enforcement accountability. Now, if you’re CFO, you’re going to jail. They’re going to turn to their GC and say, you need to keep me out of trouble.”

The challenge of course is that neither the GC nor the legal department can be looking over everyone’s shoulder all the time.

But that doesn’t always matter when the authorities come knocking…

Full post as published by The Wired GC on February 18, 2008 (boomark / email).