Inspector General Notes DOL’s Lack Of Controls In Information Sharing Agreements

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) found in a recent report that three of its agencies have failed to establish controls for information-sharing agreements with private-sector plaintiff-side law firms. According to the OIG, the lack of oversight over 48 agreements from January 2023 through June 2025 has given some third-party entities an unfair advantage. DOL claims that it did not enter into any information-sharing agreements during the first half of 2025.

The report identified what it termed as “significant internal-control deficiencies” in the common interest agreements executed by DOL and private law firms. The OIG claims that those agreements gave other parties an unfair advantage because they may have contained privileged investigative information.