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FCA Does Not Authorize In-House Counsel/Relator to Reveal Client Confidences

Client Alert | 1 min read | 11.18.13

In Fair Lab. Practices Assocs. v. Quest Diagnostics (Oct. 25, 2013), the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a qui tam suit that was brought by a general partnership formed for the purpose of bringing the suit because (1) the partnership included the defendant's former general counsel, and (2) the former general counsel violated his ethical obligations by divulging confidential client information in pursuit of the litigation, notwithstanding that a non-lawyer member of the partnership initiated the suit. While the Second Circuit did not create a bright-line rule barring all in-house lawyers from using client information in FCA cases, it did strike a balance between a lawyer's ethical obligations to the client and the government's competing interest in encouraging "whistleblowers" to report fraud, finding that the disclosure exceeded what was necessary to prevent the client from committing a crime.


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Client Alert | 3 min read | 09.15.26

Private Investigations Act Series: An Introduction to the New Legal Framework for Internal Investigations in Belgium

Until recently, Belgian law did not have a general regulatory framework for internal investigations. Companies wishing to conduct an investigation had to navigate a fragmented set of rules that covered general principles and, to a limited extent, privacy and employee rights. The application of these rules to internal investigations was not clear, and it was therefore often difficult to put the rules into practice. This legal vacuum created significant risks, both for the integrity of the investigation itself and for the admissibility of any evidence gathered. ...

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