“Legal advice provided by an advocate on matters of company law fall within the scope of the strengthened protection of exchanges between advocates and their clients,” as listed in the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union. According to “Loze&Partners” law firm senior partner, sworn advocate Jānis Loze: “This ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union reaffirms that the EU strictly protects the principle of confidentiality of the client. The public authority may not request the law firm to disclose information about the amount of legal assistance provided to the client.”
In its ruling, the Court of Justice of the European Union refers to Article 7 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and emphasizes that the EU Council Directive 2011/16/EU on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation, which instructs parties to provide all documents and information related to the relationship of an attorney with his or her client and relating to this consultation, interferes with the right to the inviolability of communications between the advocate and the client, which is guaranteed by the aforementioned article.
Although Section 6 of the Advocacy Law of the Republic of Latvia states that in their professional activities, advocates are independent and subject only to the law and require information and explanations from advocates, as well as to question them as witnesses about facts that have become known to them when providing legal assistance, it is prohibited. Jānis Loze, however, says law firms have had situations like this in the past.
“The argument concerns which of the two is superior – the Advocacy Law or the Special Law. This ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union provides additional assurance that the confidentiality of the advocate/client relationship is more important than requests from state institutions,” stresses Jānis Loze.
The full ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the case C-432/23.