‘There is a fundamental tension here’: Lawyers nervous about exceptions to professional privilege

With government intelligence agencies and tax authorities coming under a spotlight in recent weeks over the sourcing of legally privileged documentation, justification and potential implications for such action has increasingly generated cause for concern among City lawyers.

It emerged in November that the Investigatory Powers Tribunal had discovered that legally privileged documents may have been targeted by British intelligence agencies MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.