Global Investigations podcast: Episode 4

In our fourth episode of the Inside Investigations podcast series, Thomas Hubbard (Senior Associate, Investigations, Enforcement and Compliance team, Norton Rose Fulbright LLP, London) continues the discussion on privilege in investigations with Alexander Cappel (Partner, Norton Rose Fulbright LLP, Frankfurt), Rongxin Huang (Partner, Shanghai Pacific Legal, Shanghai) and Kevin Harnisch (Head of White Collar Defense and Investigations, Norton Rose Fulbright LLP, Washington).  

In this second of two podcasts on privilege, the team discuss what to keep in mind in relation to privilege as an investigation progresses.

Key takeaways from the conversation include:

1. Think about privilege at every stage of an investigation.
2. When instructing third parties during an investigation, consider what privilege protections might apply to any documents or communications.
3. In the UK, interviews conducted in the course of an investigation may not be covered by legal advice privilege. 
4. When communicating with regulators keep to the facts to avoid waiving privilege over documents.  
5. However, be strategic in your approach to claims of privilege over documents requested by a regulator – a regulator may look favourably on privilege being waived and may challenge a claim to privilege it views to be unfounded.  
6. Bear in mind the risk of relevant documents which are provided to regulators being disclosed in any subsequent related litigation.  

The new episode can be found here: please listen and subscribe to the series for more insight and practical tips on how to handle investigations.

If you missed out on Episode 3, discussing the first part of privilege in investigations, catch up here.