There have been plenty of cases featuring issues of privilege since the last edition of the Global Privilege Handbook. Certain key cases are highlighted below.

• Krishna Holdco Ltd v. Gowrie Holdings Ltd [2025] EWHC 341 (Ch): The High Court upheld a claim to litigation privilege over a valuation report that had been prepared for the potential sale of a company's trading subsidiaries to a shareholder of the company. In doing so, the court looked beyond the immediate transaction and considered why the sale was happening. It was satisfied that the sale did not arise in the course of ordinary commercial negotiations, but rather as a response to a strategic threat that was part of the wider dispute being litigated between the parties. In these circumstances, the dominant purpose of the valuation report was identified as the conduct of litigation and, therefore, the relevant test was satisfied.
• Al Sadeq v. Dechert LLP [2024] EWCA Civ 28: Another aspect of this decision (discussed earlier in this chapter) relates to litigation privilege. The court held that litigation privilege can apply where the person claiming the privilege is a non-party to the (actual or contemplated) litigation, i.e., a third party, provided the dominant purpose test is satisfied. However, the question of whether the third party has to have a "sufficient interest" in the (actual or contemplated) proceedings (over and above satisfying the dominant purpose test) was left open because, if it was a requirement, it was plainly satisfied on the facts of this case.
• Aabar [2024] EWHC 3046 (Comm): This important decision held that the so-called "Shareholder Rule" is unjustifiable and should no longer be applied in English law. The rule was considered to be a principle of English law that a company could not assert privilege against its own registered shareholders (being shareholders at the time the document was created), unless the relevant documents came into existence for the dominant purpose of actual or threatened proceedings between the company and its shareholders. Although this decision (that the rule does not apply) is subject to an appeal, which is due to be heard in January 2026, this may now fall away due to the Privy Council decision of Jardine Strategic Limited v. Oasis Investments II Master Fund Ltd and others No 2 (Bermuda) [2025] UKPC 34. The Lord and Lady Justices confirmed the Shareholder Rule should be abolished, both in Bermuda and in England and Wales.
• E20 Stadium, London Legacy Development Corp v. A&O [2022] EWHC 1808 (Comm): This decision considered limited and collateral waiver in the context of a disclosure exercise. Certain documents were disclosed voluntarily in accordance with specific disclosure requests (under the English "Model C" category of disclosure, which involves agreed search terms), and the defendant sought to argue that this amounted to a collateral waiver of further documents. The court disagreed and made the following points: First, it is for the court to determine, objectively, what amounts to the "transaction" in order to determine the scope of the waiver; second, the defendant was seeking to extend the transaction in a way that was not contemplated when the Model C requests were agreed; and third, the defendant had not established any unfairness in relation to the voluntary disclosure. As such, there was no collateral waiver.