New York Appellate Court Broadens Common Interest Privilege

Keywords: common interest privilege, New York law

The New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department recently issued an opinion that provides important clarification to the scope of the common interest privilege under New York law. In Ambac Assurance Corp., et al. v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. et al.,¹ the First Department held that the common interest privilege applies in non-adversarial contexts, rejecting prior caselaw that limited the privilege to situations where there is pending or reasonably anticipated litigation. In doing so, the court significantly broadened the scope of the common interest privilege to apply to communications between different entities in any legal matter in which they share a common interest.