Investigations, Dawn Raids, Legal Professional Privilege And Privacy - Recent Developments

There have been a number of recent Irish and EU developments since the seminal 2017 Supreme Court judgment in CRH plc v Competition and Consumer Protection Commission¹ (the “CRH case”) dealing with the protection of rights in a search and seizure context. The recent cases seek to balance the rights of the parties being investigated with the powers of the regulators. There have also been rulings that bring clarity to some practical aspects of how these rights need to be asserted in regulatory investigations.

The Supreme Court in the CRH case found against the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (“CCPC”) in relation to aspects of a search and seizure exercise it had conducted and recognised the role of the unenumerated right to privacy deriving from Article 40.3 of the Irish Constitution and the right to respect for your private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, in regulatory investigations and dawn raids. In that case, the