The appropriate boundaries of legal privilege have been
considered recently by senior appellate courts both here and in
Europe, with markedly different outcomes.
The judgments deal with different types of legal privilege - the
European Court of Justice (ECJ) with legal professional
privilege and the New Zealand Supreme Court with litigation
privilege. Taken together, however, they illustrate some
important underlying differences in approach between the different
jurisdictions.
Akzo Nobel Chemicals Ltd and Akcros Chemicals Ltd v
European Commission
(Case C 550/07 P)
Akzo Nobel arose as a consequence of an investigation
of Akzo and Akcros by the European Commission (EC) for
suspected breaches of European competition law. During inspections
of the business premises of the two plastics companies in February
2003, the EC took copies of a number of communications between
executives and in-house legal counsel. Akzo and Akcros
objected to the EC's subsequent use of
