Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division announced today that the Antitrust Division has implemented two uniform updates to its Civil Investigative Demand (CID) forms and deposition process:
First, all CIDs issued by the Antitrust Division — including CIDs for documentary material, written interrogatories, oral testimony, or any combination thereof — will now provide notice to all recipients that their documents, answers to interrogatories, and/or testimony may be used by the Department of Justice in other civil, criminal, administrative, or regulatory cases or proceedings. Specifically, CIDs issued by the division will now include the following notice:
The information you provide may be used by the Department of Justice in other civil, criminal, administrative, or regulatory cases or proceedings. Individuals may refuse, in accordance with the rights guaranteed to them by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, to produce documents and/or answer any question that may tend to incriminate them.
Second, division attorneys taking oral testimony pursuant to a CID will ask the deponent questions on the record at the outset of every deposition to confirm that the deponent understands the ways in which the information they provide can be used by the Department of Justice.
These updates are consistent with long-standing division policies and aim to further promote transparency in antitrust investigations.
