Confidentiality: A Limit To Your Choice Of Counsel

12 May 2020

Parties to a dispute want to choose their preferred external counsel, traditionally subject to the direct conflict of interest where the counterparty is an existing or was a former client. In some cases, this may mean appointing a legal team which successfully acted for another client against the same defendant on a previous similar matter. This choice may no longer be an unfettered one.
 
The recent Court of Appeal case of LVM Law Chambers LLC v Wan Hoe Keet [2020] SGCA 29 articulated in its judgment the requirements which must be met before a court would restrain a lawyer from acting against the same counterparty in a previous set of proceedings.
 
This article discusses this decision and also considers confidentiality obligations arising from mediation. 
 
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