Preserving Legal Privilege

As soon as any crisis arises, there will be frequent and detailed discussions, as well as communications back and forth both within the company and between the company and its legal counsel. Legal privilege protects certain communications from being disclosed to investigators or in litigation. It is essential to consider privilege rules at the outset, both to protect privileged communications and to minimize the risk of unhelpful documents being created that are not privileged.

Privilege is not absolute, and there can be notable exceptions. For instance, certain jurisdictions may include discussions with in-house lawyers within the realm of privilege, while others may not. Companies also need to take care when waiving their privilege rights to certain communications, as they waive rights over a much wider range of materials than intended.

This chapter looks at the legal privilege rules in major markets around the world and how privilege can be preserved.

Analysis of law and practice in China was contributed by David Gu and Yingyun Chen of JunHe LLP.

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