Privilege denial 'violates rights'

The denial of legal professional privilege to in-house lawyers across Europe is a clear violation of their human rights, the vice-president of the European Company Lawyers Association (ECLA) claimed last week.Jettie van Caenegem told IBA delegates that the denial of legal professional privilege was an unacceptable discrimination againstin-house lawyers.

'It is a basic and vital human right for all lawyers to have privilege,' said Ms van Caenegem, who is group general counsel of UCB.

'It is also a basic human right for all companies to be able to use the lawyer of their choice, and if they cannot use their in-house lawyer because of a lack of privilege, they too are being actively discriminated against.'At present, the European Commission does not accord in-house lawyers the privilege enjoyed by private practice lawyers because many continental European Bars - although not the the Law Society and Bar Council - prohibit in-house lawyers from becoming members, meaning they are not subject to their codes of conduct.

In-house lawyers around Europe, led by the ECLA and supported by the Law Society's Commerce & Industry Group, have long lobbied in favour of privilege.Shawn Davis, US-based in-house lawyer for Blue Sentinel, told the conference that denial of in-house privilege would eventually be detrimental to the European Commission because in-house lawyers would stop putting their advice in writing in order to avoid the privilege issue.He added: 'Senior management will start to use external, privileged lawyers and stop consulting their in-house teams.'However, Gtz Drauz, director of the commission's merger task force, defended its position and indicated that there was little chance of change.'Our mission is to protect the public from wrongdoing, and if we give privilege to in-house lawyers it will allow more wrongdoing to take place unnoticed and uninvestigated by us,' he said.

Victoria MacCallum