On 3 August 2026, the President of the General Court refused to suspend a Commission decision requiring Broadcom to produce documents in response to a mandatory request for information in the context of an antitrust investigation.

The General Court reiterated the ECJ’s case law confirming that, under EU law, legal privilege continues to apply only to:

• communications between external lawyers and clients: Despite recognition in a growing number of EU Member States, EU legal privilege still does not extend to correspondence within a company with in-house lawyers.
• communications connected to the client’s rights of defence. The General Court does not address in this context the Court of Justice’s judgment in Orde van Vlaamse Balies (C‑694/20), in which the Court recognised broader protection for lawyer client correspondence in the context of disclosure obligations imposed on lawyers.
• communications between clients and EU qualified lawyers: The General Court reiterated that EU legal privilege is limited to correspondence with lawyers entitled to practise in one of the EU Member States and “may not be extended beyond those limits”.

The General Court also confirmed the Commission’s power to request information from undertakings located outside the European Union.

Main takeaways!

This is an interim relief order based on a prima facie assessment. It is not the final judgement on the lawfulness of the Commission’s decision.

However, the order signals the General Court’s reluctance to extend EU legal privilege beyond the scope recognised in earlier Court of Justice case law. For companies active in the EU, the practical message remains that legal privilege should be assessed through an EU law lens, rather than by reference to the laws of third countries or individual EU Member States.

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