United States Third Circuit

In an ongoing grand jury investigation into an alleged criminal tax scheme, district court's grant of government's motion to enforce subpoenas for documents and testimony to the corporation's counsels based in part on the crime-fraud exception is affirmed where: 1) the corporation has standing to contest the grand jury subpoenas because it claims privilege in the sought-after documents and testimony; 2) John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 lack standing because they are not privilege holders and do not have any other cognizable interest in the documents or testimony; 3) the corporation's appeal from the March Order is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because it may travel the well-worn contempt path to jurisdiction; and 4) the district court correctly applied the crime-fraud exception to deny the corporation a privilege protection over testimony and two documents sought from its former in-house counsel, and determined that three documents sought from those counsel do not qualify as privileged.

Appellate Information

• Decided 12/11/2012
• Published 12/11/2012

Judges

• Ambro

Court

• United States Third Circuit

Counsel