Judge considers issues relating to legal advice privilege and
disclosure of a document by mistake
Two issues arose to be decided in this case:
(1) Were the defendants entitled to claim legal advice
privilege? Chief Master Marsh held that they were not, because
communications were not made with the "client". In so
doing, he followed the recent Court of Appeal decision of SFO v
Eurasian Natural Resources Corpn, which in turn followed the
earlier Court of Appeal decision in Three Rivers (No.5)
which held that not all officers and employees (and ex-employees)
within a company should be treated as the "client" for
the purposes of legal advice privilege. The Court of Appeal had
also expressed some dissatisfaction with the Three Rivers
position in the SFO decision, but that was not referred to
in this case.
