Legal professional privilege is absolute unless overridden by statute or the party entitled to claim privilege waives that privilege or is estopped from claiming it. There is no principle of law that if a party misleads a...more
A party may waive privilege not just by making positive assertions about its privileged communications but also negative assertions (ie what was not said in privileged communications). For there to be a waiver, the party has...more
The Court of Appeal held that without prejudice material incorporated into a settlement agreement between the claimants and one of the defendants could be inspected by the remaining defendants in on-going multi-party...more
The Supreme Court has ruled that the court has far reaching jurisdiction to allow non-parties access to court documents, but it will only allow such access where doing so furthers the principle of open justice: Cape...more
The new Disclosure Pilot Scheme (DPS) applies from 1 January 2019 to all cases in the Business and Property Courts even where an old style Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) Part 31 disclosure order was made prior to that date....more
Internal emails at a corporate client to discuss a commercial settlement proposal were not covered by litigation privilege. The Court of Appeal held that for litigation privilege to apply the communications must always be...more
Legal advice privilege attaches not just to those communications between lawyer and client which have as their purpose the giving or receiving of legal advice, but also extends to material which “evidences” the substance of...more
Without prejudice communications should be disclosed to a third party because two exceptions to the without prejudice rule applied (the “concluded settlement agreement” and “reasonableness of mitigation” exceptions). Previous...more
From 18 January 2017, claimants will be able to apply for a European Account Preservation Order (EAPO), a new, and potentially potent, weapon in their litigation armoury pursuant to the new European EAPO Regulation...more
The English civil justice system operates in an ever more globalised and competitive market, with international businesses seeking not only robust enforceable decisions, but also efficiently delivered ones. These proposals...more
A new regulation establishing a European Account Preservation Order (EAPO) came into force on 17 July 2014 and will be applied by participating Member State courts from 18 January 2017. This instrument represents a new (and...more