Internal Investigations

When an entity or executive is accused of submitting fraudulent billings or violating Anti-Kickback laws, the company must have accurate information when making critical business decisions. If senior executives may be liable, the Board of Directors itself will often undertake an internal investigation. That investigation must be done by truly independent counsel – not the corporation’s counsel. 

We have worked directly for the Board or its Special Committee to conduct a thorough forensic investigation of actions and policies involved in the alleged malfeasance. We report our findings to the Board with helpful and practical recommendations to mitigate the damage and prevent future liability.  The US Department of Justice has formed a national COVID Fraud Task Force with more than 5000 federal agents and prosecutors.  We have represented corporate boards in healthcare and scientific research when an internal investigation is needed.  We then work with the federal investigators to present our findings and remediation measures.

Workplace misconduct claims can be very serious, particularly when involving personal misconduct by executives, managers or others in authority.  When the allegations warrant, an investigation by independent counsel is needed to impartially investigate the situation and also demonstrate to the employees that the company takes the allegations seriously and will take action when appropriate.  Our findings are accompanied by recommendations and compliance plans for remedial action. These investigations often require sensitivity and discretion. 

When there appears to be self-dealing by employees or accounting irregularities, an internal investigation is often warranted.  Having the investigation done by a law firm increases the chances that the investigation process will be protected by the attorney-client privilege.  These situations can arise in many situations such as: insider-trading, manipulation of commissions, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations, kickbacks in procurement, inflated valuations for financing purposes, embezzlement, money laundering, creation of fake vendors, fake customers, or fake employees, money laundering, or improper entries for receivables or expenses.  We have investigated all of these and more and successfully steered clients through dangerous waters.