Court restricts in-house legal privilege

Report of judgment in ECJ C-550/07 P Akzo Nobel Chemicals Ltd v Commission. In the field of competition law, internal company communications with in-house lawyers are not covered by legal professional privilege.

The ruling is likely to be particularly significant for multinational corporations, which tend to have large in-house legal departments, and will inevitably add to their legal bills, lawyers say.

ECJ: Press Release, No.90, 2010: Judgment in Case C-550/07 P Akzo Nobel Chemicals Ltd v Commission http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2010-09/cp100090en.pdf

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