No Privilege For Original Version Of Document Simply Because Comparison To Final Version Would Reveal Legal Advice

The Employment Appeal Tribunal has ordered a party to disclose the original version of a report following an internal investigation, where the report had subsequently been amended in accordance with legal advice and the final version disclosed: University of Dundee v Chakraborty [2022] EAT 150.

The Tribunal rejected the submission that a non-privileged document could later acquire privileged status simply because it had become the subject of legal advice and a comparison with the final version would allow the content of the advice to be inferred. The decision shows that there are limits to the well-established principle that a document will be privileged to the extent that it betrays the content or the trend of legal advice.