On June 29, 2015, the Court of Appeal of the HKSAR handed down
an important judgment relating to legal advice
privilege.
The Court of Appeal decided to adopt the "dominant purpose
test" when considering whether legal advice privilege should
attach to a document that disagrees with the restrictive definition
of "client" adopted by the English Court of Appeal in the
case of Three Rivers (No.5).
Consequently, whether legal advice privilege applies to an internal
confidential document depends on whether it was produced or brought
into existence with the dominant purpose that the document or its
contents be used to obtain legal advice. The judgment is likely to
be broadly welcomed in the in-house legal community.
The case is Citic Pacific Limited v. Secretary for Justice
CACV 7/2012, and the judgment is available on the Hong Kong
Judiciary website here.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.