Three Rivers No. 5
Three Rivers District Council v Bank of England (No. 5) [2003] EWHC A2565 is a controversial decision of the UK Court of Appeal about legal privilege.
The Bank of England claimed legal professional privilege for documents created between BCCI’s collapse and the Bank’s final submissions to the Bingham Inquiry.
The Bank does not claim they were prepared in contemplation of litigation and so are thereby protected by “litigation privilege”; the Bank claims they protected by simple "legal advice privilege" — privilege relating to legal advice not provided contemplation of litigation.
The lower court had held: “... an internal confidential document, not being a communication with a third party, which was produced or brought into existence with the dominant purpose that it or its contents be used to obtain legal advice is privileged from production...”