Privilege—collateral waiver revisited (PJSC Tatneft v Bogolyubov)

Table of contents

• What are the practical implications of this case?
• What was the background?
• What did the court decide?
• Case details

Article summary

Dispute Resolution analysis: This is another recent decision, following hot on the heels of PCP Capital Partners v Barclays Bank, on the principle of collateral waiver and its scope. Collateral waiver is a principle by which a party who has deployed privileged material in proceedings thereby also loses the right to assert privilege in relation to other privileged material relating to the same subject matter. The defendant applied, during trial, for disclosure of various categories of privileged documents whose privilege was said to have been waived on the basis of various references in the claimant’s (Tatneft) witness statements. Mrs Justice Moulder largely dismissed the defendant’s application, holding that in most cases, privilege had not been waived by Tatneft, and that where it had been waived, the scope of the waiver was generally more limited than contended by the defendant. Written by Bibek Mukherjee, barrister at Essex Court Chambers.