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© Copyright, 2000 to 2010,
by Leonard Bucklin.
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You may be pressured into producing the company's attorney-client
privileged documents in response to a prosecutor's demand.
Does production automatically waive the privilege in civil suits by other
persons? Here is a tip for what you should insist upon with the
prosecutor.
The trial court in In re Natural Gas Commodity Litig., 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS
11950 (S.D.N.Y. June 21, 2005) held that a production of privileged documents in
response to a prosecutor's demand does not automatically waive the privilege as
to other persons. In providing that the documents were still protected, even
though disclosed to a government prosecutor in an attempt to avoid criminal
prosecution, the court found it important that in the production to the
government there was a clear written agreement containing the following points:
- An express statement that the privileged information was provided to the
agency only in reliance on the agency's agreement to return the documents and
retain no copy thereof;
- An express statement [acknowledgement] that the disclosed material was,
indeed, privileged and that the company intended to preserve its privileged
character;
- An express statement that there was no general waiver of privilege as to the
subject matters discussed in the documents, and there was no waiver of privilege
as to third parties whatsoever;
- An express confidentiality and nondisclosure agreement statement from the
agency to which the documents were disclosed; and
- An express agreement statement from the agency that it itself would not assert
that the production of the materials constituted a waiver of the privilege in
further proceedings.
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