Boardroom failures, financial regulatory lapses, auditor and security analyst conflict of interest, unsatisfactory banking practices, and fraud compelled the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002 and Dodd-Frank in 2010, placing organizations under greater government scrutiny. The higher standards set by the legislation place enormous responsibility on organizations to be prepared to conduct their own internal investigations and to police themselves more effectively or face penalties and fines.
When the Dodd-Frank Act first passed, Peter Zeidenberg, a
DLA Piper partner who worked as a federal prosecutor at the Department of
Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, remarked,
“Most companies will have to deal with an internal investigation at some point.
You’re very lucky if you don’t. In any large company, it’s hard to imagine that
at some point in time there’s not going to be some suggestion or allegation of
internal misconduct.”
