Talkative Parrot

The Talkative Parrot Lives in a Cage,” sometimes “Chatty Parrot,” is a legal aphorism to individuals to be careful of what they say, especially to representatives of law enforcement, without legal advice. Essentially it’s a warning especially when for example US or German antitrust/competition law, or securities law in many jurisdictions is at issue that these laws can be not just civil but criminal in nature and a witness or executive should be careful to consider what they say and admit in terms of their own criminal liability. The authors have experienced the inverse corollary, where to avoid quickly resolved a criminal case, a party agreed to accept a plea to trade-secret theft without criminal-liability in such a way as to render an otherwise clearly false accusation claim nugatory – the latter would have been very damaging to his/her former employer who’d brought a false accusation who under local law would have faced serious liability. In short, individuals should be careful of what they say, in what contexts and seek good professional legal advice.

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