In this blog post, Matteson Ellis discusses the increase in investigations of potential wrongdoing within large organizations in Latin America, including internal investigations related to potential violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). "The U.S. Department of Justice's recent announcement of its FCPA pilot program serves to elevate the emphasis on internal investigations," Ellis said. "This is because a key component of credit under the program is cooperation, which often means conducting one's own internal investigation and reporting the findings to the authorities." According to Ellis, key issues that companies conducting internal investigations in Latin America are facing today include: determining whether an issue is serious enough to warrant an independent investigation; scoping the investigation appropriately; preserving documents at the right time; the cost-effective collection, hosting and search of electronic documents; immediate remediation; and managing external audiences.