Privilege in the International Corporate Context

Sriranga Veeraraghavan, VP, Legal, Tessera Intellectual Property Corp., USA

As corporations become increasing international in the 21st century, in-house counsel located in one country are frequently asked to provide legal advice to employees, executives, and divisions located in different countries. Providing effective legal advice and protecting such advice from disclosure under the attorney-client privilege (or its equivalent) requires an understanding of the differing international legal standards that can apply to questions of privilege. To assist in-house counsel, this article examines the attorney-client privilege and its equivalents in selected North American (the United States and Canada), European (the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the European Union, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, and Germany) and Asian / Pacific (India, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Australia) jurisdictions.

Sriranga Veeraraghavan is a Vice President, Legal at Tessera. Sriranga provides legal support for transactional matters at Tessera, including technology licensing and M&A. Before joining Tessera, Sriranga practiced law at Cooley LLP and Howrey LLP and worked as an engineer at Sun Microsystems and Cisco Systems. He is a named inventor on two U.S. patents, which are based on his work at Sun.

For more than 25 years, Tessera has been a leader in innovating, and licensing technology and intellectual property. We research and develop semiconductor and imaging technology, and transfer or license our technologies and intellectual property to customers around the world. Research and development groups work closely with our sales and marketing groups, as well as our customers and partners, to bring high-quality technologies to market in a timely and cost-efficient manner. Tessera’s customers range from large semiconductor companies and mobile device manufacturers, to small research institutions. We have licensed our technologies to hundreds of companies and institutions including, among others, industry leaders such as Micron Technology, Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., SK hynix Inc., and Sony Corporation.