Asia Pacific Guide to Privilege 2019

We are pleased to launch the 2019 edition of our Asia Pacific Guide to Privilege.

Businesses are increasingly faced with multi-jurisdictional disputes where evidence rarely falls within the borders of a single country and complex legal privilege issues often surface when dealing with communications across multiple jurisdictions. 

Compiled by our network of Herbert Smith Freehills lawyers and trusted local counsel, the updated Guide takes account of the latest developments across Asia Pacific and covers 21 jurisdictions. 

Many enforcement actions either emanate from or involve long-arm jurisdictions outside Asia and span across many jurisdictions in Asia. Given for example the English Bribery Act’s broad jurisdiction and extra-territorial reach coupled with aggressive enforcement agencies, clients around Asia ought to understand how the authorities in England will apply the law of privilege, in addition to how the law is applied across Asia. Moreover, although English case law is persuasive in most common law jurisdictions, legal advice privilege is an area in which a number of common law jurisdictions, such as Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore, have chosen to depart from English case law. Given the spotlight on these issues, we have added a new chapter on England & Wales and a related comparative question in each of the other 20 chapters across Asia-Pacific.

We hope that this comprehensive Guide will be useful particularly to multinational companies who operate numerous subsidiaries across borders.

Please click here to access a preview of the Guide.

Please email asia.publications@hsf.com to request a soft or hard copy of the Guide.

Our teams will of course be happy to discuss any of the matters raised in this Guide at your convenience.