Tag Archives: Tracey Lattimer

Deliberate Data Breaches: Consequences for Companies Just Got Even Tougher

by Kelly Hagedorn, Tracey Lattimer, Emily Bruemmer, and Jennifer Yun

In today’s world, data breaches are a regular occurrence.  The size and scale varies, and they have different causes, but those matters are irrelevant if you are a data subject affected – you just want the situation resolved and compensation for any losses you suffer.  Who should be responsible for those breaches?  Where a company has not taken sufficient steps to safeguard personal data, the answer is obvious.  But what about where a rogue employee leaks personal data with the deliberate intention of harming his employer?  The English High Court has recently decided that even in that instance, the employer is liable to data subjects.  Although there is no specific case on this point, we believe that a similar outcome would be reached in an action under US law. Continue reading →

The Growing Danger to Privilege in Investigations

 by Peter Pope, Kelly Hagedorn, Katie Gibbons and Tracey Lattimer

More than three decades ago, the U.S. Supreme Court held that memoranda and notes of interviews that lawyers conduct of a corporate client’s employees are generally protected from disclosure by both the attorney-client privilege and the attorney work-product doctrine.  See Upjohn co. v. United States, 499 U.S. 383 (1981).

In two recent cases, the English High Court of Justice ruled the opposite way under English law, holding that notes and interview memoranda created in internal investigations enjoyed no privilege protection at all.  Instead, both English judgments ordered the lawyers’ notes and interview memoranda to be turned over – in one instance to prosecutors and in another to private litigants.  See Serious Fraud Office v Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Ltd [2017] EWHC 1017 (QB) (hereinafter “ENRC”); The RBS Rights Issue Litigation [2016] EWHC 3161 (Ch) (hereinafter “RBS”). Continue reading →