On 28 August 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the dismissal of criminal charges against 13 former executives at KPMG. The Court held that the government prosecutors "unjustifiably interfered with defendants' relationship with counsel and their ability to mount a defense, in violation of the Sixth Amendment..." by pressuring KPMG to refrain from paying their legal fees. Separately on the same day, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Mark Filip announced new prosecution rules aimed at not penalizing companies as noncooperative for protecting attorney-client material or paying for their employees' attorneys in probes. "No corporation is obligated to cooperate or to seek cooperation credit by disclosing information to the government," Filip said at a press conference at the New York Stock Exchange. "Refusal by a corporation to cooperate, just like refusal by an individual to cooperate, is not evidence of guilt."