High Court Consideration Of Legal Privilege

The High Court judgement in R (Stewart Ford) v Financial Services Authority [2012] EWHC 997 (Admin) has emphasised the importance of legal professional privilege and that it does work when properly implemented, but also demonstrated that winning the legal argument does not necessarily provide the desired outcome. The court ruled that privileged material should not have been used by the FSA in issuing a warning notice, but nonetheless refused to overturn the warning notice simply by virtue of the inclusion of that material. Keydata Investment Services Limited was in the business of providing marketing and sales information and products to independent financial advisers. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) had reason to believe that certain FSA rules had been contravened by Keydata with regards to the way they were selling and marketing a particular product. As a result, the FSA carried out investigations on Keydata. Irwin Mitchell advised Keydata as a company and a number of their executives in a personal capacity throughout the investigation process. While the investigation was ongoing, Keydata was put into administration. Using their compulsory...