On August 24, 2017, Nick Scala of Conn Maciel Carey’s national MSHA Practice, presented a webinar regarding Internal and Third Party Audits: Risks, Rewards and How To Protect the Results.
There are numerous benefits to internal or third-party safety audits. These audits offer operators terrific insight for proactive safety and compliance improvements. But, can these audits be used against an operator…The short answer is yes.
Typically, both internal and third-party safety audits can be acquired by MSHA during inspection (if offered by the operator) or during discovery in litigation. Since MSHA has no statute of limitations for enforcement, such records can be used against operators, especially to support allegations that an operator knew or should have known of specific conditions. This webinar will provide recommendations for the creation and retention of internal and third-party audits.
During this webinar, participants learned about:
MSHA’s capacity to rely upon prior safety audits during investigations and enforcement;
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Suggested limits on distribution and language choices while creating audits; and
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How to engage with counsel to assert privilege over the audits and protect them from MSHA.
Here is a link to a recording of the webinar with slides and audio. This was the eighth webinar event in the 2017 Conn Maciel Carey MSHA Webinar Series. Plan to join us for the remaining webinar in the 2017 series, send an email to info@connmaciel.com to be registered for the remaining MSHA webinars.
