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ARTICLE · 25 FEBRUARY 2020

Privilege - When Will A Regulator's Powers Override Legal Professional Privilege?

Gowling WLG
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The FRC is a statutory regulator responsible for the public oversight of statutory auditors. Under the Statutory Auditors and Third Country Auditors Regulations 2016 ("SATCAR") it is empowered...

United KingdomLitigation, Mediation & Arbitration
Catherine Naylor
Catherine Naylor
Emily Till
Emily Till
Christopher Richards
Christopher Richards
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In the latest in a string of important recent decisions on legal professional privilege ("LPP"), the Court of Appeal has considered the scope of LPP in the context of statutory regulatory investigations. We look at the decision in Sports Direct International Plc The Financial Reporting Council.

Background to the case

The FRC is a statutory regulator responsible for the public oversight of statutory auditors. Under the Statutory Auditors and Third Country Auditors Regulations 2016 ("SATCAR") it is empowered to inspect and conduct investigations into statutory auditors and audit work. Where the FRC investigates a statutory auditor or audit work, it can give a notice requiring certain persons to provide information relating to the statutory audit of any public interest entity. Those persons include anyone involved in the audit firm or in the audited entity. Crucially for this case, SATCAR provides that such a notice "does not require a person to provide

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