Akzo Nobel Chemicals Ltd and another v European Commission C-550/07 P, [2010] All ER (D) 72 (Sep)
Court of Justice of the European Union (Grand Chamber), Skouris (President), Tizzano, Rodrigues, Lenaerts, Bonichot, Silva de Lapuerta (Rapporteur), and Levits (Presidents of Chamber), Rosas, Lohmus, Safjan and Svaby, 29 Apr 2010
In relation to Legal Professional Privilege (LPP), in-house lawyers are in a fundamentally different position from external lawyers, so that their respective circumstances are not comparable.
In February 2003, the Commission ordered the applicants to submit to an investigation aimed at seeking evidence of possible anti-competitive practices. To that end, Commission officials carried out an investigation at the applicants’ premises. They took copies of a considerable number of documents.
The applicants’ representatives informed the officials that certain documents were likely to be covered by the protection of confidentiality of communications between lawyers and their clients. It was decided that the leader of the investigating team would briefly examine the documents in question. During the examination of the documents in question, a dispute arose in relation to five documents.
After obtaining the applicants’ observations concerning the first
