{"id":1873,"date":"2023-08-18T14:41:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-18T13:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pragal-prinzenberg.de\/2023\/11\/18\/strafvereitelungsrisiken-fuer-rechtsanwaelte-bei-internal-investigations\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T09:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T08:24:16","slug":"risks-obstruction-of-justice-for-attorneys-in-internal-investigations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/blog\/risks-obstruction-of-justice-for-attorneys-in-internal-investigations\/","title":{"rendered":"Risks of Obstruction of Justice for Attorneys in Internal Investigations?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/lawyers\/dr-oliver-pragal\/\">Dr. Oliver Pragal<\/a> and Wolfgang Prinzenberg have tackled this contentious issue in the new edition of Wistra (Pragal\/Prinzenberg, Strafvereitelungsrisiken bei Internal Investigations &#8211; <em>Risks of Obstruction of Justice in Internal Investigations<\/em>, Wistra 2023, p. 275-277).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Special thanks to Prof. Dr. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/wolfgang-spoerr\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Wolfgang Spoerr<\/a> for his valuable peer review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The article deals with the issue \u2013 seldom discussed yet highly relevant in practice \u2013 of the possible circumstances under which attorney commissioned to conduct an <a href=\"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/competencies\/internal-investigations\/internal-investigations\/\">internal investigation<\/a> and those responsible for the client may run the risk of rendering themselves liable to prosecution for obstruction of justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It examines the neuralgic case constellations in practice and seeks to clarify the dogmatic principles in order to offer guidance for practitioners on this basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Among others, we discuss the following case groupings (N.B.: always assuming an intention to thwart criminal proceedings):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Improper restriction of the investigational mandate and report in terms of personnel, subject matter or period under examination.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Improper restriction of the data to be collected (such as under the pretext of data protection requirements): e.g. incomplete matching of data categories, no matching of emails with databases\/group drives and physical documents, no consideration of special file types (transactional data, programming data, accounting data),<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Questioning of employees (so-called \u201ccustodians\u201d) without coordination with the public prosecutor\u2019s office (alteration: in the knowledge that this \u201cadvance warning\u201d will, for instance, be used to manipulate subsequent witness testimony or destroy incriminating evidence),<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Bypassing or influencing relevant \u201ccustodians\u201d during questioning, conducting deliberately unproductive interviews (e.g. \u201cfreehand\u201d rather than based on existing or available data analysis, waiving the presentation of allegations), or embellishing the written record of a statement,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Destruction of incriminating evidence (e.g. email inboxes or data storage)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The storage of the entire database compiled within the context of so-called eDiscovery on servers abroad in order to render them inaccessible to the state<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Supplying evidence (particularly data) in a deliberately disorganized manner or in improper \u201cinflated\u201d quantities for the purpose of obstructing justice or in breach of a so-called \u201cdata supply agreement\u201d,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Delaying the investigation for the purpose of \u201cprotraction\u201d or causing the statute of limitations to expire<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Failing to draw up or submit an incriminating report<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Submitting a report of the investigation to the prosecutor\u2019s office that is unjustifiably \u201ceuphemistic\u201d or \u201cabridged\u201d with regard to the presentation and assessment of the available facts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Oliver Pragal and Wolfgang Prinzenberg have tackled this contentious issue in the new edition of Wistra (Pragal\/Prinzenberg, Strafvereitelungsrisiken bei Internal Investigations &#8211; Risks of Obstruction of Justice in Internal Investigations, Wistra 2023, p. 275-277). Special thanks to Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Spoerr for his valuable peer review. The article deals with the issue \u2013 seldom &#8230; <a title=\"Risks of Obstruction of Justice for Attorneys in Internal Investigations?\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/blog\/risks-obstruction-of-justice-for-attorneys-in-internal-investigations\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Risks of Obstruction of Justice for Attorneys in Internal Investigations?\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1087,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-compliance-en","category-internal-investigations-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Obstruction of Justice Risks in Internal Investigations<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Risks of obstruction of justice in internal investigations. Which actions are punishable for lawyers &amp; companies &amp; how to minimize risks.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/blog\/risks-obstruction-of-justice-for-attorneys-in-internal-investigations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obstruction of Justice Risks in Internal Investigations\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Risks of obstruction of justice in internal investigations. Which actions are punishable for lawyers &amp; companies &amp; how to minimize risks.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/blog\/risks-obstruction-of-justice-for-attorneys-in-internal-investigations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pragal Rechtsanw\u00e4lte\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-08-18T13:41:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-10-27T08:24:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/internal-investigations-scaled.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1704\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Oliver\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Oliver\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Obstruction of Justice Risks in Internal Investigations","description":"Risks of obstruction of justice in internal investigations. Which actions are punishable for lawyers & companies & how to minimize risks.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/blog\/risks-obstruction-of-justice-for-attorneys-in-internal-investigations\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Obstruction of Justice Risks in Internal Investigations","og_description":"Risks of obstruction of justice in internal investigations. Which actions are punishable for lawyers & companies & how to minimize risks.","og_url":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/blog\/risks-obstruction-of-justice-for-attorneys-in-internal-investigations\/","og_site_name":"Pragal Rechtsanw\u00e4lte","article_published_time":"2023-08-18T13:41:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-10-27T08:24:16+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2560,"height":1704,"url":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/internal-investigations-scaled.jpeg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Oliver","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Oliver","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/blog\/risks-obstruction-of-justice-for-attorneys-in-internal-investigations\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/blog\/risks-obstruction-of-justice-for-attorneys-in-internal-investigations\/"},"author":{"name":"Oliver","@id":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/fddb78736ea6cf38aa7213836e716ebb"},"headline":"Risks of Obstruction of Justice for Attorneys in Internal Investigations?","datePublished":"2023-08-18T13:41:00+00:00","dateModified":"2026-10-27T08:24:16+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/blog\/risks-obstruction-of-justice-for-attorneys-in-internal-investigations\/"},"wordCount":400,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/blog\/risks-obstruction-of-justice-for-attorneys-in-internal-investigations\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/internal-investigations-scaled.jpeg","articleSection":["Compliance","Internal Investigations"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/blog\/risks-obstruction-of-justice-for-attorneys-in-internal-investigations\/","url":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/blog\/risks-obstruction-of-justice-for-attorneys-in-internal-investigations\/","name":"Obstruction of Justice Risks in Internal Investigations","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/blog\/risks-obstruction-of-justice-for-attorneys-in-internal-investigations\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/en\/blog\/risks-obstruction-of-justice-for-attorneys-in-internal-investigations\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/pragal-rechtsanwaelte.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/internal-investigations-scaled.jpeg","datePublished":"2023-08-18T13:41:00+00:00","dateModified":"2026-10-27T08:24:16+00:00","description":"Risks of obstruction of justice in internal investigations. 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