Reporting Tax Schemes Violates Legal Professional Privilege

Abstract

In this article, the author discusses the judgment of the CJEU in the case C-694/20 Orde van Vlaamse Balies and Others, which extends the protection of professional secrecy for lawyers. In the context of combating aggressive tax planning, the CJEU ruled that requiring licensed lawyers to inform other intermediaries involved in a tax scheme is unnecessary and violates the right to respectful communication with the client. The CJEU’s view that legal professional privilege takes precedence over tax objectives and obligations is the main novelty of the judgment under review. Individuals who consult a lawyer, as well as a tax advisor, have a reasonable expectation that their communications will remain private and confidential. Therefore, except in exceptional circumstances, they have a legitimate expectation that their lawyer will not, without their consent, disclose to anyone the fact that they are the subject of his or her advice. Following the judgment, the European Commission will legislate to amend the DAC6 Directive so that it meets the requirements of EU primary law as identified by the Court.

The judgment is also important because it recognises that legal professional privilege is not limited to advice given in the context of litigation, which has been a restrictive view in antitrust cases.

In Orde van Vlaamse Balies and Others, in which the Court held that the duty to inform other intermediaries imposed by Article 8ab(5) DAC 6 interfered with the right to respect for communications between lawyers and their clients guaranteed by Article 7 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Court gave primacy to primary law (the Charter of Fundamental Rights) over secondary law (DAC 6). In this context, a new jurisprudential trend can be observed in which a substantive review of the Tax Directive was carried out on the basis of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. In general, the CJEU has been reluctant to get involved in substantively reviewing EU secondary legislation. More recently, however, the CJEU seems to be carefully analysing provisions of EU directives that are not in line with fundamental rights.