This has not been a good year to be a general counsel. In the first nine months of 2007, a record 10 general counsel were charged with, or pleaded to, civil or criminal fraud in federal courts, most in the wake of the stock-options backdating scandal.
“This is unprecedented,” says David Bayless, former head of the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) San Francisco office and now white-collar defence for Covington & Burling. “In the five years I headed the [SEC] office we might have had one case. They have done 10 in one year.”
