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Bill Would Protect Attorney-Client Privilege

By Robert J. Ambrogi

A bill filed in the House of Representatives this week would bar federal investigators from pressuring businesses and their employees to waive the attorney-client privilege as a condition of avoiding indictment or other sanctions. Introduced Wednesday by U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., as H.R. 4326, the bill mirrors legislation filed in the Senate in February by U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa.(S. 445). The bill provides that federal investigators, in both criminal and civil matters, may not "demand, request, or condition treatment on the disclosure by an organization, or person affiliated with that organization, of any communication protected by the attorney-client privilege or any attorney work product." It also blocks the federal government from using waiver of the privilege as a basis for determining whether to bring charges or whether someone is cooperating with the government. The Justice Department already has guidelines in place that prohibit prosecutors from considering waivers of the privilege as a litmus test for cooperation, according to the blog Main Justice. But the policy does not cover other investigatory agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Ironically, the Justice Department's guidelines were written in...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on December 18, 2009 (boomark / email).