DICO Talk of the DICO Criminal Law Working Group on March 18, 2025 at Vodafone in Düsseldorf
Investigating authorities often conduct investigations against company employees without the company being aware of this or being surprised by it. A surprise appearance by the investigating authorities can result in chaotic crisis situations. At the same time, companies clarify misconduct within the company and occasionally need the support of the investigating authorities to do so. In both cases, numerous auditing and reporting obligations are triggered vis-à-vis a company’s stakeholders and, in high-profile cases, also vis-à-vis the public. It is important to keep a cool head in order to guide the company through these situations in the best possible way. In order to perform these tasks effectively and efficiently, it helps considerably to understand the course of an investigation and, in particular, the expectations of the public prosecutor’s office or other investigating authorities. If this understanding is lacking, strategic and tactical misjudgements are unavoidable and the risk of misunderstandings with the investigating authorities that trigger conflicts is inevitable.
This is reason enough to discuss the mutual expectations between investigating authorities and companies in a “DICO Talk” and to raise mutual awareness. The topics to be covered include
- Dealing with the search situation
- Release of data and documents
- Relationship between Internal Audit/Internal Investigation and the investigating authorities
- Arrest
- Internal and external communication