Atmel Corp. v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance

ORDER RE: ABD DOCUMENTS

By letter briefs, the parties bring before the Court a dispute regarding the production of third-party documents that Atmel claims are protected under the attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine. This issue was previously raised by defendant’s motion to compel and the Court held a hearing on that motion on July 1, 2005. The Court ordered the parties to meet and confer, in order to allow Atmel to produce additional information about its privilege claim. After the meet- and-confer, St. Paul has renewed its request to compel production of documents through this letter brief.

At issue in this motion are approximately 80 documents in ABD’s possession that Atmel has asked ABD to withhold on the grounds of the attorney-client and work product privilege. St. Paul claims that Atmel waived any privilege when these documents were provided to ABD, its insurance broker.

Disclosure of an attorney-client communication to a third party does not automatically waive privilege. Instead, the privilege remains intact if disclosure occurs to “no third persons other than those who are present to further the interest of the client in the consultation or those to…