Consider the following scenarios: Your multinational-corporation employer undertakes a comprehensive internal investigation in the wake of alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. In-house lawyers in several countries are involved, and email messages, memoranda and other highly confidential information are exchanged between attorneys and company executives. Later, a foreign regulatory authority seeks these documents as evidence against the company in its anticorruption investigation.
Or your global company gets sued in a Texas court, and the plaintiff’s lawyer, perhaps savvy in in-house attorney-client privilege abroad, seeks a memo on the subject of the litigation drafted by an in-house attorney based in France and circulated to in-house lawyers stateside and elsewhere.
