Opinion ID: 167649
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Cooperation with Law Enforcement

Text: 68 Qwest argues selective waiver is necessary to ensure cooperation with government investigations. Selective waiver may well be a means to encourage cooperation with law enforcement, an end with unquestioned benefits to the commonwealth. See, e.g., Andrew J. McNally, Revitalizing Selective Waiver: Encouraging Voluntary Disclosure of Corporate Wrongdoing by Restricting Third Party Access to Disclosed Materials, 35 Seton Hall L.Rev. 823, 825-27 (2005). The Sixth Circuit majority in Columbia/HCA Healthcare conceded that a selective waiver rule would further the search for truth, realize considerable investigative efficiencies, encourage settlements, and possibly increase corporate self-policing. 293 F.3d at 303. 69 The record before us, however, does not support the contention that companies will cease cooperating with law enforcement absent protection under the selective waiver doctrine. Most telling is Qwest's disclosure of 220,000 pages of protected materials knowing the Securities Case was pending, in the face of almost unanimous circuit-court rejection of selective waiver in similar circumstances, and despite the absence of Tenth Circuit precedent. These actions undermine its argument that selective waiver is vitally necessary to ensure companies' cooperation in government investigations. See Steinhardt Partners, 9 F.3d at 236 (The SEC has continued to receive voluntary cooperation from subjects of investigations, notwithstanding the rejection of the selective waiver doctrine by two circuits and public statements from Directors of the Enforcement Division that the SEC considers voluntary disclosures to be discoverable and admissible.); Westinghouse, 951 F.2d at 1426 ([W]e do not think that a new privilege is necessary to encourage voluntary cooperation with government investigations.... We find it significant that Westinghouse chose to cooperate despite the absence of an established privilege[] protecting disclosures to government agencies.); see also Branzburg, 408 U.S. at 693-94, 92 S.Ct. 2646 (rejecting creation of reporters' privilege and stating the evidence fails to demonstrate that there would be a significant constriction of the flow of news to the public if this Court reaffirms the prior common-law and constitutional rule regarding the testimonial obligations of newsmen). The record is equally deficient concerning whether the DOJ and the SEC may have independently gained access to the Waiver Documents by invoking other means or theories, such as the crime or fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege. The DOJ posed this very possibility in its response to Qwest's mandamus petition. See DOJ Resp. Br. at 2 n. 1. 70 Further, if selective waiver were as essential to government operations as Qwest claims, it would seem the agencies would support Qwest's position. At the court's request, the DOJ responded to Qwest's petition. 4 Rather than urging the adoption of selective waiver, though, it carefully took no position on the parties' dispute. Additionally, the DOJ declined an invitation to participate in oral argument. It would appear, then, that the government's interest is not as Qwest portrays it. 5