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Jan. 23 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday on the scope of attorney and client privilege, including a law firm’s bid to withhold records from prosecutors related to clients promoting cryptocurrencies in tax audits. Dismissed the lawsuit.
The unsigned one-sentence judgment “improvised” an appeal by an unnamed law firm of a court order that downplayed its failure to turn over relevant records to one of its clients in response to a federal grand jury subpoena. I dismissed it as having accepted it.”
The judge did so just two weeks after hearing arguments in the case. Many of the details of the case are unknown, as the names of the law firm and clients are hidden from public records during the usually secretive grand jury investigations.
The law firm, which specializes in international tax matters, advised a client, which the U.S. Department of Justice says was an early proponent of Bitcoin, who left the United States in 2014, according to court documents.
The law firm said it prepared tax returns for its clients and provided legal advice on how to determine and value ownership of cryptocurrency assets.
In response to a grand jury subpoena seeking records related to the preparation of a client’s tax return, the company produced over 20,000 pages of records, but withheld other records on the grounds of attorney-client privilege. .
When the court ordered the extradition of about 54 people, it resisted. According to the company, these records were “dual-purpose” communications containing legal and non-legal advice on preparing tax returns.
But the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said a lower court judge said legal advice must be the “principal” purpose of the correspondence in order to gain attorney-client privilege. supported
The ruling contradicts what several other federal appeals courts have ruled in similar cases, and several groups of lawyers, such as the American Bar Association, impose broader standards of privilege on judges. I submitted a letter requesting adoption.
During the Jan. 9 debate, some judges questioned why the Ninth Circuit’s standard was wrong, with liberal Judge Sonia Sotomayor stating, “The majority of states do not use the primary purpose test. There are,” he pointed out.
Liberal Judge Elena Kagan said that until 2014, the federal appeals court had not suggested that a different standard should apply. She jokingly asked a lawyer at her law firm to comment on the ancient legal principle, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.
Reporting by Nate Raymond of Boston.Editing by Jonathan Ortiz
Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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