Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP (JD Supra France)

In the United States, all attorneys are entitled to the benefits of attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine whether they work for a private law firm, a corporation, or the government. But in France (and to an extent the rest of Europe, where legal privilege is generally less robust for in-house counsel than in the United States), in-house counsel has no such privilege. An in-house...

On June 21, 2018, the French Senate finally passed a law that creates a specific regime for the protection of trade secrets, a legal concept that, until now, had remained undefined in the country. This law, which was the subject of over four months of parliamentary discussions, results from France’s legal obligation to comply with the Directive 2016/943 of the European Parliament and of the...

Despite signing the OECD anti-corruption Convention in 1997, France has long been perceived as lacking necessary tools for domestic and international anti-corruption enforcement, particularly in comparison to the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (“FCPA”) or the UK Bribery Act of 2010 (“UKBA”). The perception that France is lax on corruption was underscored by the fining and monitoring of...

France Unveils New International Arbitration Statute: In January, France adopted a statute governing arbitration that took effect May 1, 2011. The statute is intended to maintain France’s role as a leading venue for international arbitration disputes. Under the statute, the president of the Paris Court of First Instance is given the title of “support judge” and has the authority to support...