THAILAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Chusert Supasitthumrong, John Frangos, Alongkorn Tongmee and Eric Meyer, Tilleke & Gibbins
5.5 Legal Privilege Absent certain circumstances, licensed lawyers in Thailand are prohibited from disclosing confi- dential information about their clients. Addition- ally, under the Thai Penal Code, the disclosure of confidential information by a licensed lawyer or the lawyer’s assistant or trainee can constitute a criminal offence under certain circumstances. If an in-house lawyer is licensed in Thailand, then the concept of attorney-client confidentiality will also apply in the same way that it would apply to external lawyers. 5.6 Rules Disallowing Disclosure of a Document A party on whom a subpoena for documents has been served can file a petition to dismiss the subpoena on certain grounds, including the following. • The requested document is irrelevant or the request is too broad or too vague to enable the party to identify the document or deter- mine whether it is in its possession. • The request is overly burdensome. • The requested document does not exist or is not in the party’s possession • Production of the requested document is prohibited by law. • Production of the requested document could potentially cause damage to a third party. • The requested document is confidential or privileged. However, the decision of whether to enforce or dismiss the subpoena will be up to the discretion of the court.
of such request must be narrow and identify the document(s) to be produced with specificity. As the available mechanisms are limited in scope, there is very little opportunity for a party to abuse these mechanisms, as can occur in other jurisdictions. Accordingly, other than the specificity required for a subpoena for docu- ments mentioned above, there are no specific mechanisms by which the scope and/or costs of the discovery process can be curbed. 5.2 Discovery and Third Parties It is possible to obtain discovery of both docu- mentary evidence and witness testimony from a third party. This will be done by asking the court to issue a subpoena for a specific document or documents or for a third party to appear at trial to testify. 5.3 Discovery in This Jurisdiction The discovery process in Thailand is limited in scope. There is no formal pre-trial disclosure procedure. Parties are not required to produce lengthy initial disclosures or mandatory disclo- sures of the witnesses and documentary evi- dence on which they intend to rely during trial. Instead, under the Criminal Procedure Code, each party is required to submit a list of witnesses and documentary evidence at least seven days before the hearing at which the evidence will be taken. For supplementary lists of additional wit- nesses or evidence, each party is required to submit this list within 15 days from the hearing at which the evidence was presented. 5.4 Alternatives to Discovery Mechanisms As described previously in 5. Discovery , Thai- land provides for certain discovery mechanisms, albeit of a more limited scope than that found in jurisdictions with extensive discovery practice.
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