Preserving Privilege in a Corporate Group: Lessons from In re Teleglobe Communications Corp.

Article By Wendy Matheson, David Outerbridge and Laura Day*

OBA seminar: Privilege, Confidentiality and Conflicts of Interest, Oct 23.

In re Teleglobe Communications Corp.¹ is an important decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit regarding the preservation of solicitor–client privilege between members of the same corporate family.²

Canadian law is clear that the legal advice provided to a company in confidence by in-house counsel is subject to solicitor–client privilege in the same way as legal advice provided by external counsel.³ What is less clear are the answers to the following, more complicated, questions. Where inhouse counsel communicates with the parent company and one or more corporate affiliates, who is the client? Is there only one client, or are there several joint clients? Is advice that is given to the parent company privileged as against the subsidiaries? Can one member of the corporate family waive privilege for all?