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Privileged Communication Fiduciary Duty

McGuireWoods LLP

Can an Entity’s Owners Access Its Privileged Communication?

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An entity’s minority shareholders or partners obviously look to the entity’s governance documents when assessing their rights and obligations. On the privilege front, minority owners sometimes aggressively seek the entity’s...more

Holland & Knight LLP

Providers Negotiating with Doctors Who Have Restrictive Covenants Beware

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Providers negotiating with doctors and other medical professionals who are bound by enforceable restrictive covenants is tricky business. By virtue of his/her/their position, these physicians may owe fiduciary duties to the...more

McGuireWoods LLP

Southern District of Ohio Acknowledges the "Fiduciary Exception's" Applicability to ERISA Communications — With a Twist

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Under what is called the "fiduciary exception," the law essentially deems a fiduciary's beneficiary to be the fiduciary’s lawyer’s actual "client." This normally enables the beneficiary to access communications between the...more

Farrell Fritz, P.C.

Pitfalls for Corporate Counsel in Business Divorce Disputes

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No corporate lawyer wants to get drawn into a nasty litigation between an entity’s owners. But the reality is that corporate and general counsel often find themselves unwittingly ensnared in business divorce cases. Sometimes...more

McGuireWoods LLP

The Oddly Named "Fiduciary Exception" and Its "Exceptions"

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Under old English trust law, courts gave trust beneficiaries access to otherwise privileged communications between the trust fiduciary and its lawyer advising him or her on trust administration matters. The main case bringing...more

BCLP

A few lessons for internal and outside counsel from the WorldCom collapse - 20 years later

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It has now been 20 years since the historic collapse of WorldCom, Inc. (“WorldCom” or the “Company”). A review of the WorldCom collapse yields some continuing lessons for corporate counsel....more

Robins Kaplan LLP

Be Warned: As Fiduciary Duties Shift, So, Too, Can Privilege Ownership

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Picture this. Years after leaving your in-house counsel role at Company A, you find yourself being deposed in a litigation matter with Company A’s adversary inquiring into your legal notes and internal privileged...more

Winstead PC

Suing Attorneys In Texas For Participating in Fiduciary Breaches

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It is not uncommon for an attorney to execute all or part of his or her client’s wishes, which may be in breach of a fiduciary duty owed by the client to a third party. The third party can certainly sue the client for...more

ArentFox Schiff

Attorney-Client Privilege Issues: Three Ways Companies Can Shield Privileged Communications From Their Directors

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Directors owe fiduciary duties to the company. To make informed decisions and satisfy those fiduciary duties, directors generally have broad access to the company’s books and records, with a few exceptions. A corporate...more

Morris James LLP

Chancery Finds Former Directors Bringing Wrongful Termination Claims Were Not Entitled to all Privileged Communications During...

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SerVaas v. Ford Smart Mobility LLC, C.A. No. 2020-0909-LWW (Del. Ch. Nov. 9, 2021) - With limited exceptions, directors normally have “unfettered” access to corporate information. This decision indicates, however, that the...more

Morris James LLP

Chancery Holds That Management Does Not Have Unilateral Authority to Preclude a Director From Obtaining the Company’s Privileged...

Morris James LLP on

In Re WeWork Litig., Consol. C.A. No. 2020-0258-AGB (Del. Ch. Aug. 21, 2020) - In October 2019, The We Company’s (the “Company”) board of directors established a special committee (the “Special Committee”) to evaluate a...more

McGuireWoods LLP

Delaware Courts Address Common Interest Doctrine Issue: Part I

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The common interest doctrine occasionally allows separately represented clients to share privileged communications without waiving that fragile protection. Nearly all courts require that the common interest doctrine...more

Proskauer - Employee Benefits & Executive...

Life Insurer Compelled to Produce Attorney-Client Communications

A federal district court in Ohio concluded that internal communications between a plan administrator and in-house counsel about a beneficiary’s first-level benefit claim remained protected by the attorney-client privilege,...more

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP

PetSmart Tells PE Firms to GetSmart on Privilege

How PE firms can minimize attorney-client privilege risks after Argos Holdings Inc. and PetSmart Inc. v. Wilmington Trust N.A. PE firms face a variety of litigation and deal-related attorney-client privilege challenges...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Issues Landmark Decision Preserving the Corporate Attorney-Client Privilege

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On Wednesday, January 23, 2019, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania rejected a “qualified” attorney-client privilege that would have changed the law in Pennsylvania governing the scope of the privilege. The qualified privilege...more

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Does the Fiduciary Exception Apply to Legal Advice Received By Insurers During the Claims Process

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Seyfarth Synopsis: Adding to the body of conflicting authority on the scope of the attorney-client privilege in ERISA lawsuits, a district court has found that the fiduciary exception to attorney-client privilege applies to...more

Holland & Knight LLP

New York Appellate Division Strongly Supports In-House Law Firm Privilege Claim

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In Stock v. Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis, 2016 WL 3556655 (N.Y. App. Div. 2016), the First Judicial Department of the New York Appellate Division upheld, in a case involving a former law firm client seeking to sue the...more

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