Where can i study law in France?

Need example of someone using "Secret Professionnel" in Civil Law country

• Hi, I need an example of a case in which a European company in a Civil Law country (such as France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and all other continental European countries apart from Malta and Cyprus) did something that involved the principle of "Secret Professionnel." Secret Professionnel is the way lawyers over there protect confidential attorney-client documents. By "did something," I mean a lawyer claimed "secret professionnel" status to protect his client, but the courts struck down his claim. Or the something to illustrate the concept of SP. It has to be a real case. It is hard to search for stuff on this because all the hits come back in French and Italian. My end product is a short case study like this: "In a famous case, a very large international bank collapsed causing a huge scandal. Depositors lost of billions of pounds. The British government established an inquiry into a major British bank's dealings with the failed bank. The British bank created a committee to assist the inquiry and deal with the external lawyers. At the end of the inquiry, the creditors of the failed bank brought proceedings against the British bank, alleging negligent regulation of their bank. The creditors sought disclosure of certain documents the British bank prepared for the government inquiry. The bank claimed they were protected by legal advice privilege. The creditors argued that the external lawyers' client was the committee, not the bank itself. The Court of Appeal decided the client was, in fact, the committee. The documents were not privileged and had to be disclosed." That is great, except it is for the UK, a Common Law country. You don't have to write the case study. I'll do that. Just provide me some factual material I can write a case about. Thank you. Questions? [email protected]

• Answer:

  Greetings, jimwalden! Well, I always enjoy the opportunity to use my French language training, and although I found numerous French criminal cases relating to attorney-client privilege, I was unable to find any references to civil cases on that subject. However, when I tried a different tack: French "case law" database ://www.google.com/search?&q=French+%22case+law%22+database I hit paydirt. That search string brought up the Search Page for the Case Law database of HUDOC (the European Court of Human Rights): http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/hudoc/default.asp?Language=en&Advanced=1 and when I searched the database (full text) for "secret professionnel"the case that popped up was this one: CASE OF KOPP v. SWITZERLAND (13/1997/797/1000) http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/hudoc/ViewHtml.asp?Item=0&Action=Html&X=1115015556&Notice=0&Noticemode=&RelatedMode=0&X=1115015601 This involves a civil case where a wiretap on a law firm's telephones had been authorized by the Federal Public Prosecutor. The firm filed suit, charging that their professional secrecy had been violated by the wiretapping, which of course had recorded phone calls wherein information protected by client-attorney privilege was discussed. The judgment decreed that the attorneys had not enjoyed a minimum degree of protection required by rule of law in a democratic society and that Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights had been violated. I've made this Answer brief to get you the information as quickly as possible. Please do ask for Clarification if you have any questions or concerns about the Answer I have provided you. Other search terms I tried: "secret professionnel" [professional secrecy] avocat OR avocats [attorney(s)] "étude de cas" OR "étude de cas" [case study(ies)] "cass. civ" [abbreviation for civil case] civile [civil] loi [law] -concurrence [competition] -médecin -médecine -médecal -Québec Best Wishes! aceresearcher