SWEDEN Law and Practice Contributed by: Simon Arvmyren, Christopher Stridh and Mikaela Tysk, Delphi
5.5 Legal Privilege Attorney-client privilege is recognised under Swedish law and governed by the Procedural Code as well as the Swedish Bar Associa- tion’s Code of Conduct. Attorney-client privi- lege applies to both documents and testifying in court. Attorney-client privilege does not apply for in- house counsel, only for members of the Swedish Bar Association. However, counsel representing a client in court proceedings is covered by the attorney-client privilege and may not be forced to testify. There are certain exceptions to attorney-client privilege, related to, for instance, the obligation to report certain matters to the police in relation to the EU-wide legislation intended to combat money laundering and financing of terrorism. 5.6 Rules Disallowing Disclosure of a Document See 5.4 Alternatives to Discovery Mechanisms . 6. Injunctive Relief 6.1 Circumstances of Injunctive Relief Chapter 15 of the Procedural Code provides rules regarding provisional relief, including the possibility of awarding injunctions freezing assets. A party seeking provisional relief must make an application to the court, asking it to freeze the opposing party’s assets equivalent to the value of the claim. The request for provisional relief will be sustained if the applicant shows that there is probable cause for the principal claim to be successful and that there is reasonable sus- picion that the defendant will try to evade fulfil- ment of its performance, such as, for example, payment of a debt.
documents in civil cases. See 5.4 Alternatives to Discovery Mechanisms . 5.2 Discovery and Third Parties See 5.4 Alternatives to Discovery Mechanisms . 5.3 Discovery in This Jurisdiction See 5.4 Alternatives to Discovery Mechanisms . 5.4 Alternatives to Discovery Mechanisms As mentioned in 5.1 Discovery and Civil Cas- es , broad discovery is not available to parties in Swedish court proceedings and each party is responsible for securing, collecting and submit- ting the evidence it deems necessary. Having said that, it is possible to apply to the court and request production of documents under Chapter 38, Section 2 of the Procedural Code. For such an order to be successful the application must fulfil the following criteria: • the document sought must be sufficiently identified, and so should categories of docu- ments, as long as the definition is fairly nar- row to be acceptable; • the document sought must be important to the dispute in terms of being relevant and material to the outcome of the case; and • the defendant or a third party must have the document in its possession. Also, electronic “documents” may be included in a request and a party may be ordered to provide electronic documents in the electronic format. If a document covered by a request constitutes a trade secret, the responding party will not be ordered to disclose it unless there are compel- ling reasons.
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