A recent Delaware Court of Chancery letter opinion presents an interesting twist concerning the applicability of the attorney-client privilege to emails between a party and his attorneys where the emails were stored on a server controlled by the adverse party. In Lynch v. Gonzalez, C.A. No. 2019-0356-MTZ (Del. Ch. Nov. 18, 2019), Vice Chancellor Morgan T. Zurn concluded that the emails were privileged because of a “statutory override” of the common-law analysis based on the law of the controlling jurisdiction.

The underlying dispute involved the ownership and management of Belleville Holdings, a Delaware limited liability company, which was a holding company for ownership interests in various Argentine companies. The plaintiff, Carlos Lynch, and the defendant, R. Gonzalez, were co-managers of Belleville until Lynch acquired a controlling interest in the company and appointed himself Belleville’s sole manager. The case concerned whether Lynch properly acquired his controlling interest in the company.