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In The Courts

By ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |
September 01, 2003

Court Holds That a Company Waived Its Privileges over an Internal Investigation Report

In United States v. Bergonzi, 216 F.R.D. 487 (N.D. Cal. 2003), the United States District Court for the Northern District of California held that a company waived its attorney-client privilege and work-product protection over an internal investigation report by disclosing the report to the Government. Although the Government and the company entered into a confidentiality agreement, they did not have a true “common interest” to prevent waiver.

In Bergonzi, the defendants, Albert Bergonzi and Jay Gilbertson, were charged with securities, wire and mail fraud arising from their role as former executives of HBO & Company (HBOC). The indictment alleged that between 1997 and April 1999, defendants and others deliberately engaged in a variety of fraudulent practices that resulted in the intentional misstatement of the publicly reported financial results of HBOC and McKesson HBOC. In light of accounting irregularities discovered by auditors in 1999, the Board of Directors of McKesson HBOC retained a law firm to conduct an internal investigation and to make recommendations regarding McKesson HBOC's accounting policies, procedures and controls. The law firm, in turn, retained an accounting firm to assist with the review.

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