From recent experience in cross-border investigations (especially the Libor investigation in the United States and the United Kingdom), it has become apparent that many of our colleagues overseas in private practice are bewildered by the propensity of American white collar defense lawyers to rush into the Government to disgorge the product of their internal investigations when representing companies. Self-reporting in the United States is now a prerequisite to obtaining full cooperation credit and the mitigation of punishment that goes along with it. See, for example, the recent pronouncements about cooperation by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and by James McDonald, Director of Enforcement at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.[1]
European law enforcement is not premised on the notion that the only clear way to obtain leniency for a business organization is to cooperate, or, indeed, to turn the company in. For many private lawyers in other countries the imperative to cooperate simply does not compute. Continue reading