Business Law: Principles for Today's Commercial Environment 3rd Edition by Marianne Moody Jennings, David Twomey, Marianne Jennings

Exercise 7

In 2000, former investment banker Frank Quattrone was head of the technology division of Credit Suisse First Boston Corporation (CSFB), earning about $120 million per year. Quatrrone and his Tech Group did the initial public offerings (IPOs) for a great many of the dotcoms. Because of questions about those IPOs, there were several state and federal grand jury investigations of CSFB pending in the fall of 2000. On December 5, 2000, Quattrone sent the following e-mail "endorsement":
[H]aving been a key witness in a securities litigation case in south texas (miniscribe) i strongly advise you to follow these procedures.
Quattrone then added an e-mail from Richard Char, another investment banker, that read:
Subject: Time to clean up those files … With the recent tumble in stock prices, and many deals now trading below issue price, the securities litigation bar is expected to [sic] an all out assault on broken tech IPOs.
In the spirit of the end of the year (and the slow down in corporate finance work), we want to remind you of the CSFB document retention policy [the policy was reproduced here].
Note that if a lawsuit is instituted, our normal document retention policy is suspended and any cleaning of files is prohibited under the CSFB guidelines (since it constitutes the destruction of evidence). We strongly suggest that before you leave for the holidays, you should catch up on file cleanup.
As a result of the Quattrone e-mail, at least some Tech Group bankers began or continued "cleaning" their files. Quattrone was indicted for obstruction of justice in connection with the investigations. Did he obstruct justice [U.S. v Quattrone, 441 F 3d 153 (2d Cir 2006)]