White Collar Roundup - December 2015

Yates Isn't Done Yet

In a speech at an American Bar Association conference, Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates highlighted changes that will be made to the U.S. Attorney's Manual (USAM) relating primarily to the Filip factors, which govern the considerations attorneys at the Department of Justice (DOJ) are to analyze when deciding whether to bring charges against organizations. The first change is a clarification that an organization would be entitled to cooperation credit only if it provides "all non-privileged information about the conduct of individuals" to the prosecutors. She called this a "threshold hurdle that must be crossed before [prosecutors will] consider any cooperation credit." She also took a shot at privilege claims: "[L]et's be clear about what exactly the attorney-client privilege means. As we all know, legal advice is privileged. Facts are not." So in the DOJ's view, notes from an interview of an employee might be privileged, but the facts