e-discovery 2.0

It’s not just in New Jersey that corruption is in the news. It feels like everywhere you go, the authorities are investigating white collar crime and thus have an increasing need for electronic discovery technology.

Earlier this month, as those of you who follow my Twitter feed will know, I was visiting customers and partners in Germany. In virtually every meeting, data privacy and corruption investigations were top of mind, and with good reason. Following the Siemens case last year, German investigators have become much more active and it was easy for my hosts to list example after example of recent cases. There was the Deutsche Bahn case of management spying on its own employees, in violation of German privacy laws; the Deutsche Bank case of management spying on its own board; and, the Deutsche Telecom case of management phone tapping employees to find leaks. There were stories of price collusion among cable car companies in the Alps, and corruption investigations into the activities of German companies in Eastern Europe.

A similar focus on anti-corruption exists closer to home. I have written before about the increase in FCPA investigations and that’s been reflected in recent headlines. As the Wall Street Journal reports, Sun and Shell have recently come under the microscope, according to their public filings. And Frederic Bourke, a founder of the accessories firm Dooney & Bourke, was recently found guilty of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which may result in jail time.

All indications are that the U.S. Department of Justice and its counterparts overseas are just warming up. It’s not a good time for white collar crime, wherever you are in the world.