Corporate Crime Reporter
18 Corporate Crime Reporter 17(1), April 26, 2004
Feds Hire Outside Lawyer to Probe
Corporate
Target's Compliance Program
Federal prosecutors in Pittsburgh have hired an outside lawyer specializing
in compliance programs to determine whether a corporate target under investigation
has implemented an adequate program to detect criminal behavior.
At a legal conference in San Francisco last week, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan
said that she hired Win Swenson, the former U.S. Sentencing Commission deputy
general counsel, to investigate a corporate target of one of her ongoing investigations.
A Justice Department memo issued last year titled Principles of Federal Prosecution
of Business Organizations – also known as the Thompson memo – calls
on federal prosecutors to take compliance programs into consideration in determining
whether to bring a federal criminal charge against a corporation.
In particular, the memo instructs prosecutors to look at the existence and adequacy
of the corporation's compliance program and the corporation's remedial actions,
including any efforts to implement an effective corporate compliance program
or to improve an existing one.
Both Buchanan and Swenson said that the hiring may be the first time a prosecutor
has hired outside counsel to launch a pre-indictment compliance investigation.
(See Interview, page 10).
“The investigation is ongoing,” Buchanan told Corporate Crime Reporter late last week. “We are reviewing everything that we have learned. The company is cooperating with the process.”
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