Hodge Malek QC and James Potts resist legal professional privilege injunction

News11th July 2017

In Simpkin v The Berkeley Group Holdings plc [2017] EWHC 1472 (QB), Hodge Malek QC and James Potts successfully resisted an application by the former Group Finance Director of Berkeley Group Services Ltd to restrain use of a document said to be protected by legal professional privilege, in a claim concerning share options and bonuses.

The judgment considers the effect of the claimant having stored the allegedly privileged document on his employer’s server and used its email system to send the document. The case also considers the Court’s equitable discretion to restrain an alleged breach of confidence and prevent a party giving secondary evidence of the contents of a privileged document under the Calcraft v Guest and Lord Ashburton v Pape line of authorities.

The judgment is available here.