A High Court Master has found that documents held by a firm of solicitors on behalf of a former client were not protected by legal professional privilege, as there was a strong prima facie case that the firm had been instructed for the purpose of furthering the client’s fraudulent investment scheme: Addlesee v Dentons Europe … Read more
The Court of Appeal’s recent decision in The Civil Aviation Authority v The Queen on the application of Jet2.com Ltd [2020] EWCA Civ 35 found that legal advice privilege (LAP) is subject to a “dominant purpose” test, and also considered how LAP applies in the context of multi-addressee emails which include both lawyers and non-lawyers … Read more
In a judgment handed down this morning, the Court of Appeal has held that an audit client was not required to hand over its privileged documents in response to a notice from its auditor’s regulator requiring the production of documents in connection with an investigation into the auditor’s conduct: Sports Direct International Plc v The … Read more
We have today launched our new series of commercial litigation update podcasts, looking at developments in civil procedure that will be of interest to in-house lawyers and others who deal with litigation in the English courts. In this first episode we look at recent developments in disclosure and privilege. This episode is hosted by Anna … Read more
The Court of Appeal has upheld a High Court decision which rejected an application for disclosure of documents containing a client’s instructions to its lawyers regarding the holding and transfer of escrow monies, in circumstances where the law firm had provided a confirmation to a counterparty as to the nature of its instructions: Raiffeisen Bank International … Read more
In a decision handed down earlier this week, the Court of Appeal has found that legal advice privilege (LAP) is subject to a “dominant purpose” test, ie that in order to benefit from LAP it is necessary to show that the dominant purpose of a communication was to give or obtain legal advice: The Civil … Read more
The High Court has held that a claimant did not waive privilege where, in evidence filed in response to an application to strike out its claims under Dutch law, it stated that it had received Dutch law advice and had formulated its claims on the basis of that advice: KMG International NV v Chen [2019] … Read more
The High Court has recently held that privilege was not lost in a solicitor’s note of a client interview in circumstances where the note had been disclosed to the SFO under a limited waiver and then referred to in the course of argument during a criminal trial held in public: SL Claimants v Tesco plc; … Read more
The Court of Appeal has held that the claimant was not entitled to withhold from inspection communications that had been incorporated into a settlement agreement with one of five defendants. That was despite the fact that, at the time they were made, those communications had been protected by the without prejudice rule, and potentially also … Read more
