German Constitutional Court Permits the Seizure of Documents in Possession of Third Party’s Lawyers
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Key takeaways:
- The German Constitutional Court has upheld that the findings of internal investigations, especially those obtained from third-party entities, can be seized by authorities in the absence of lawyer/client communication in an actual defense case.
- Documents originating from an investigation of a parent corporation are not privileged in a case against a subsidiary.
- The Court concluded that German constitutional law does not extend privilege to findings from internal investigations by a lawyer.