Not all lawyers across the globe enjoy the same rights of professional privilege in their work. In numerous jurisdictions, in-house counsel do not have the same key privileges as their private practice colleagues – an unacceptable state of play according to the many in-house lawyers’ representative bodies advocating change on behalf of their members.
The European Union, which does not recognise legal privilege for its competition investigations, currently has a piece of legislation on the cards which, if passed, would extend rights of professional privilege for in-house lawyers to cover merger notification matters, but not full competition investigations. If the law does go through, it will be a partial victory for in-house counsel, who have been campaigning for full privilege rights for 10 years.
