District Court Rules On Scope Of Legal Privilege In Germany

By Dr. Hans-Georg Kamann and Daniel Wiedmann

Legal privilege under German law is not a general principle. However, attorney-client communication is protected by several seizure prohibitions, their scope and applicability depending on the statutory basis of the legal proceedings leading to the seizure of such communication. The Federal Cartel Office ("FCO") can conduct investigations—and seize documents— on the basis of administrative or criminal procedure law. Regarding the latter, the Bonn district court recently defined the scope of privileged client-attorney communication, especially as far as in-house lawyers are involved. Moreover, the court held that inspections carried out by officials of the FCO due to alleged infringements of both national and European competition law will be measured by national principles alone, as long as the decision of the FCO as to which law will finally apply (or whether the case is to be referred to the European Commission ("Commission")), is still