High Court determines privilege in an investigation by the Financial Reporting Council (A v B and another)

Article summary

Corporate Crime analysis: In this judgment, the High Court considered a counterclaim made by a retailer which asserted legal advice privilege (LAP) over five documents (and litigation privilege over a sixth) which the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) sought in respect of an investigation into A’s former auditor. The substantive claim is reported at A v B. The judge reviewed and applied the recent authority of CAA v R (Jet2.com Ltd) including the requirement that LAP is subject to a ‘dominant purpose’ test. The judge went on to examine each document (or category of document) and determined that none of the documents were subject to legal advice privilege. The court did, however, determine that a single ‘tracked change’ should be redacted. Written by Nick Murphy, barrister, at 25 Bedford Row.