“Complex and expensive.” That is how Natasha Williams, Sanofi’s director of global litigation and investigation, described the challenges surrounding attorney-client privilege issues on the international stage. This view was shared by all four speakers at the Perspectives on Global Privilege session, held Wednesday at the Electronic Discovery Institute’s third annual Leadership Summit in Santa Monica, Calif. In a program designed to address varying global laws on the privilege, the panelists repeatedly singled out email as the principal cause of privilege problems.
While email certainly has created problems for privilege claims for in-house counsel communications in the United States, it creates additional complexities when dealing with cross-border privilege claims. Kimberly Newman, Walmart’s associate general counsel for e-discovery, based in Arkansas, noted that privilege protections vary from country to country, particularly for in-house counsel. While the U.S. has a strong tradition of privilege for corporate lawyers, many countries offer little to no protection for their internal corporate communications. By way of example, Williams noted that France does not provide a privilege for such discussions.
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