Corporate Investigations
Business Integrity and Internal Investigations
In today’s complex, highly
regulated economy, government scrutiny of corporate practices is
at an all-time high. Suspected wrongdoing can arise in many areas including,
for example, securities fraud, environmental law, insider trading, tax law
and accounting practices.
Complex fraud investigation
and business integrity and compliance are at the heart of KEMY’s
law practice. Applying
the skills, expertise and unique perspective developed by our founding
Partners, Brian P. Kenney and Gerard P. Egan, both former Federal
prosecutors, KEMY creatively and aggressively pursues all appropriate
legal avenues on behalf of our clients including comprehensive
and informed defensive advisories, pre-litigation investigations,
coordination with law enforcement and prosecuting authorities,
temporary asset restraints and other injunctive remedies, litigation
to recover money damages, developing insurance claims, and internal
corporate remedial measures such as compliance and monitoring programs.
For
these reasons, KEMY attorneys have been called upon to serve as
compliance counsel for corporations, public agencies, labor organizations,
and insurers to investigate and counsel on appropriate and effective
responses to internal and external acts and allegations of fraud,
to conduct corporate internal investigations and business integrity
audits, and to design compliance programs to prevent and detect
fraud in the future.
In the early 1990s, the enactment into law of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines
for organizations and the government’s insistence that corporations
self-police intensified the need for corporations to focus on internal and
external fraud.
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Also during the early 1990s, a related type of corporate investigation
developed known as an “independent investigation.” Since
the early 1990s, KEMY has been at the vanguard of efforts to develop
the independent investigation both as a tool for businesses to
address fraud problems and as a means for governments to police
corporations in corruption-prone industries.
Since the advent of
the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and the Sarbannes Oxley Act,
KEMY attorneys have regularly advised clients as to their legal
duties and responsibilities under these complex laws. Our Business
Integrity and Internal Investigations services will help you act
quickly to address concerns or allegations of corporate misconduct
and avoid indictment and civil exposure. KEMY
has given aid to clients in a wide array of industries in providing
counsel on: corporate and individual criminal liability; duties
of officers and directors; conducting witness interviews; reviewing
and tracking documents; grand jury and other government methods
of gathering evidence; supervising experts and investigators; parallel
proceedings; the attorney-client privilege and the work product
doctrine; reports of investigation and their confidentiality; and
persuading prosecutors not to indict.
Moreover, our Business Integrity
and Internal Investigations services assist our clients in keeping
current on developments under the Justice Department's revised “Dual
and Successive Prosecution Policy” and “Leniency
Policy for Individuals,” and introduces the Department's
policy for “Federal
Prosecution of Corporations,” including factors to weigh
in charging a corporation. It also contains developments on using
the Internet to conduct internal investigations and defend clients
under criminal investigation. |
