Failure to attend to causation and liabilityissues as soon as an incident occurs in the United Stateswill haunt any (potentially) responsible party long after theactual response efforts have ended. Even during the oftenchaotic phase of initial response efforts, it is critical forresponsible parties to have a system in place for handlinginternal investigations as well as responding to governmentinquiries. This paper describes issues and procedures thatshould be planned well in advance of a spill, and suggestsspecific steps for a company to follow to protect itsinterests during an internal company or externalgovernment investigation. Topics include preservingphysical evidence, protecting the confidentiality of internalinvestigative records, identifying when the government is inan investigatory role, protecting the company andindividuals during government interviews, and managingthe resources dedicated to responding to an investigationwhile also cleaning up the spill.
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