This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before

publication in the New York Reports.

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No. 80 

Ambac Assurance Corporation, 

et al.,

 Appellants,

 v.

Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., 

et al.,

 Defendants,

Bank of America Corp.,

 Respondent.

Stephen P. Younger, for appellants.

Jonathan Rosenberg, for respondent.

New York State Trial Lawyers Association; New York

State Academy of Trial Lawyers; Chamber of Commerce of the United

States of America et al., amici curiae.

PIGOTT, J.:

This discovery dispute involves certain attorney-client

communications that defendant Bank of America Corporation and

defendant Countrywide Financial Corporation shared when the two

entities were in the process of merging. Generally,

communications between an attorney and a client that are made in

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the presence of or subsequently disclosed to third parties are

not protected by the attorney-client privilege. Under the common

interest doctrine, however, an attorney-client communication that

is disclosed to a third party remains privileged if the third

party shares a common legal interest with the client who made the

communication and the communication is made in furtherance of

that common legal interest. We hold today, as the courts in New

York have held for over two decades, that any such communication

must also relate to litigation, either pending or anticipated, in

order for the exception to apply. 

I.

Plaintiff Ambac Assurance Corporation is a monoline

insurer that guaranteed payments on certain residential mortgagebacked securities issued by defendant Countrywide Home Loans,

Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Countrywide Financial

Corporation (referred to collectively in this appeal as

"Countrywide"). When the mortgage-backed securities that Ambac

insured failed during the recent financial crisis, Ambac

commenced this action against Countrywide in Supreme Court

alleging that Countrywide breached contractual representations,

fraudulently misrepresented the quality of the loans and

fraudulently induced Ambac to guaranty them. 

Ambac named Bank of America as a defendant in the

action, based on its merger with Countrywide. The merger began

to take shape in 2007, as Countrywide faced increasing credit

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losses and negative expectations about its future performance. 

The two entities publicly announced a merger plan on January 11,

2008 and closed on July 1, 2008. As a result of the merger,

Countrywide sold substantially all of its assets to Bank of

America through a series of asset transfers, and Countrywide

merged into a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bank of America called

Red Oak Merger Corporation. Ambac alleged that, as a result of

the merger, Bank of America became Countrywide's successor-ininterest and alter ego and was responsible for Countrywide's

liabilities to Ambac in the underlying action for fraud.

Discovery ensued, and in November 2012, Ambac

challenged Bank of America's withholding of approximately 400

communications that took place between Bank of America and

Countrywide after the signing of the merger plan in January 2008

but before the merger closed in July. Bank of America had listed

the communications on a privilege log and claimed they were

protected from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege

because they pertained to a number of legal issues the two

companies needed to resolve jointly in anticipation of the merger

closing, such as filing disclosures, securing regulatory

approvals, reviewing contractual obligations to third parties,

maintaining employee benefit plans and obtaining legal advice on

state and federal tax consequences. Although the parties were

represented by separate counsel, the merger agreement directed

them to share privileged information related to these pre-closing

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legal issues and purported to protect the information from

outside disclosure. Bank of America argued that the merger

agreement evidenced the parties' shared legal interest in the

merger's "successful completion" as well as their commitment to

confidentiality, and therefore shielded the relevant

communications from discovery. 

Ambac moved to compel production of those documents,

arguing that the voluntary sharing of confidential material

before the merger closed waived any attorney-client privilege

that might have otherwise attached. According to Ambac, Bank of

America and Countrywide waived the privilege because they were

not affiliated entities at the time of disclosure and did not

share a common legal interest in litigation or anticipated

litigation. Ambac further asserted that the allegedly privileged

documents were relevant to its successor-in-interest and alter

ego theories of liability and may have demonstrated that Bank of

America structured the merger so as to conceal Countrywide's

fraud and leave creditors without recourse.

A Special Referee appointed to handle privilege

disputes issued a report on Ambac's motion and ordered the

parties to review the remaining documents in accordance with its

decision (2013 NY Slip Op 32568[U] [Sup Ct, NY County 2013]). 

The Referee explained that the exchange of privileged

communications ordinarily constitutes a waiver of the attorneyclient privilege and that the communications at issue would be

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entitled to protection only if Bank of America could establish an

exception to waiver. The Referee discussed one such exception,

the common interest doctrine, which permits a limited disclosure

of confidential communications to parties who share a common

legal (as opposed to business or commercial) interest in pending

or reasonably anticipated litigation (id. at *6, citing Aetna

Cas. & Sur. Co. v Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's, London, 176

Misc 2d 605 [Sup Ct, NY County 1998], affd 263 AD2d 367 [1st Dept

1999]). The Referee concluded that "[i]f there is such

litigation and a common legal interest then the common-interest

doctrine comes into play. If there is not then the doctrine does

not protect the document" (id. at *8 [emphasis in original]). 

Having announced this standard, the Referee instructed the

parties to review the withheld documents, update the privilege

log and submit any documents that remained in dispute for in

camera review (id. at *9). 

Bank of America moved to vacate the Referee's decision

and order on the ground that its communications with Countrywide

were protected by the attorney-client privilege even in the

absence of pending or anticipated litigation. According to Bank

of America, the items were privileged so long as they involved

matters of a common legal interest between the parties -- i.e.,

closing the merger -- and were otherwise protected by the

attorney-client privilege. Supreme Court denied the motion,

holding that New York law "requires that there be a reasonable

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anticipation of litigation" in order for the common interest

doctrine to apply (41 Misc 3d 1213[A], 2013 NY Slip Op 51673[U]

[Sup Ct, NY County 2013]).

Bank of America appealed, and the Appellate Division

reversed, granted the motion to vacate and remanded for further

proceedings (124 AD3d 129 [1st Dept 2014]). Although the court

recognized that, historically, "New York courts have taken a

narrow view of the common-interest [doctrine], holding that it

applies only with respect to legal advice in pending or

reasonably anticipated litigation," it was unpersuaded by the

reasoning of those courts and concluded that pending or

reasonably anticipated litigation was no longer a necessary

element of the exception (id. at 129). The court observed that

"when a single party seeks advice from counsel, the communication

is privileged regardless of whether litigation is within anyone's

contemplation" but that, under Supreme Court's formulation of the

doctrine, "when two parties with a common legal interest seek

advice from counsel together, the communication is not privileged

unless litigation is within the parties' contemplation" (id. at

135-136). The Appellate Division could not reconcile that

distinction with the purposes underlying the attorney-client

privilege and decided instead to follow the federal courts that

have "overwhelmingly rejected [a litigation] requirement" (id. at

134 [citing cases from the Second, Third, Seventh and Federal

Circuit Courts of Appeals]). The Appellate Division remanded the

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matter to the Special Referee to determine whether the

communications fell within its reformulation of the rule. It

subsequently granted Ambac leave to appeal to this Court,

certifying the following question: "Was the order of this Court,

which reversed the order of Supreme Court, properly made?"

II.

A. The Attorney-Client Privilege

The attorney-client privilege shields from disclosure

any confidential communications between an attorney and his or

her client made for the purpose of obtaining or facilitating

legal advice in the course of a professional relationship (see

CPLR 4503[a][1]). The oldest among the common law evidentiary

privileges, the attorney-client privilege "fosters the open

dialogue between lawyer and client that is deemed essential to

effective representation" (Spectrum Sys. Intl. Corp. v Chemical

Bank, 78 NY2d 371, 377 [1991]). "It exists to ensure that one

seeking legal advice will be able to confide fully and freely in

his attorney, secure in the knowledge that his confidences will

not later be exposed to public view to his embarrassment or legal

detriment" (Matter of Priest v Hennessy, 51 NY2d 62, 67 [1980]). 

Despite the social utility of the privilege, it is in

"[o]bvious tension" with the policy of this State favoring

liberal discovery (Spectrum, 78 NY2d at 376-377; see also CPLR

3101[a][1] [directing that there be "full disclosure of all

matter material and necessary in the prosecution or defense of an

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action"]). Because the privilege shields from disclosure

pertinent information and therefore "constitutes an 'obstacle' to

the truth-finding process," it must be narrowly construed (Matter

of Jacqueline F., 47 NY2d 215, 219 [1979]; see Spectrum, 78 NY2d

at 377). The party asserting the privilege bears the burden of

establishing its entitlement to protection by showing that the

communication at issue was between an attorney and a client "for

the purpose of facilitating the rendition of legal advice or

services, in the course of a professional relationship," that the

communication is predominantly of a legal character, that the

communication was confidential and that the privilege was not

waived (Rossi v Blue Cross & Blue Shield, 73 NY2d 588, 593-594

[1989]).

The latter two elements -- confidentiality and waiver -

- are of primary importance in this appeal. "Generally,

communications made in the presence of third parties, whose

presence is known to the [client], are not privileged from

disclosure" because they are not deemed confidential (People v

Harris, 57 NY2d 335, 343 [1982]; see also Baumann v Steingester,

213 NY 328, 333 [1915]). Similarly, a client waives the

privilege if a communication is made in confidence but

subsequently revealed to a third party (see People v Patrick, 182

NY 131, 175 [1905]). The rationale for these rules is to ensure

that the privilege is "strictly confined within the narrowest

possible limits consistent with the logic of its principle" (8

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John Henry Wigmore, Evidence § 2291 at 554 [McNaughton ed 1961]). 

A lack of confidentiality and subsequent disclosure also destroy

the privilege as a matter of fairness: "when [the privilege

holder's] conduct touches a certain point of disclosure, fairness

requires that his privilege shall cease whether he intended that

result or not" (id. § 2327 at 636). 

As with any rule, there are exceptions. We have held,

for example, that statements made to the agents or employees of

the attorney or client, or through a hired interpreter, retain

their confidential (and therefore, privileged) character, where

the presence of such third parties is deemed necessary to enable

the attorney-client communication and the client has a reasonable

expectation of confidentiality (see People v Osorio, 75 NY2d 80,

84 [1989]). So, too, when one attorney represents multiple

clients concerning a matter of common interest, any confidential

communications exchanged among them are privileged against the

outside world (see Wallace v Wallace, 216 NY 28, 35 [1915],

citing Hurlburt v Hurlburt, 128 NY 420, 424 [1891]). 

B. The Common Interest Exception

This case concerns a related, but distinct, exception

to the general rule that the presence of a third party destroys

any claim of privilege: where two or more clients separately

retain counsel to advise them on matters of common legal

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interest, the common interest exception1 allows them to shield

from disclosure certain attorney-client communications that are

revealed to one another for the purpose of furthering a common

legal interest. The doctrine has its roots in criminal law and,

as originally conceived, "allowed the attorneys of criminal codefendants to share confidential information about defense

strategies without waiving the privilege as against third

parties" (Teleglobe Communications Corp. v BCE, Inc., 493 F3d

345, 364 [3d Cir 2007]). The first reported case to recognize

the exception permitted criminal attorneys to coordinate the

strategies of their clients, who were under joint indictment for

conspiracy to defraud an estate, and retain the privileged nature

of their communications (see Chahoon v Commonwealth, 62 Va 822,

839-840 [1871]). The rationale for the exception was that the

parties "had the same defen[s]e to make" and therefore "the

counsel of each was in effect the counsel of all" (id. at 841-

842).

Courts eventually replaced this "joint defense"

1 The exception has come to be known by many names: 

"common interest arrangement," "common legal interest doctrine,"

"joint litigant privilege," "pooled information privilege,"

"allied lawyer doctrine" and "allied litigant privilege," among

others. "The nomenclature is less important than a determination

of the outer boundaries of the doctrine" (North River Ins. Co. v

Columbia Cas. Co., 1995 WL 5792 at *2 [SD NY 1995]). For

purposes of this appeal, we use the phrase "common interest

doctrine" or "common interest exception," to make clear that the

doctrine is not an independent privilege but an exception to the

general rule that communications shared with third parties are

not privileged.

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doctrine, which applied to criminal codefendants, with a broader

exception that also protected communications between parties to

civil litigation. In Schmitt v Emery (211 Minn 547 [1942]), a

privileged document was exchanged among counsel for several

codefendants in a civil action, in order to prepare objections to

the document's admission into evidence. The Minnesota Supreme

Court held that "[w]here an attorney furnishes a copy of a

document entrusted to him by his client to an attorney who is

engaged in maintaining substantially the same cause on behalf of

other parties in the same litigation," the communication is

protected from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege

because it was "made not for the purpose of allowing unlimited

publication and use, but in confidence, for the limited and

restricted purpose to assist in asserting their common claims"

(id. at 554). The Uniform Rules of Evidence adopted this

formulation of the doctrine, protecting attorney-client

communications "by the client or a representative of the client

or the client's lawyer or a representative of the lawyer to a

lawyer or a representative of a lawyer representing another party

in a pending action and concerning a matter of common interest

therein" (Uniform R. Evid. 502[b][3] [emphasis added]).2 

2 "This seems to have been the common law rule" (24 Charles

A. Wright & Kenneth W. Graham, Jr., Federal Practice & Procedure:

Evidence § 5493 at 467 [1986]), and at least eleven states have

statutorily restricted the common interest doctrine to

communications made in furtherance of ongoing litigation (see

Ark. R. Evid. 502[b][3]; Haw. R. Evid. 503[b][3]; Ky. R. Evid.

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Our Court first recognized the common interest doctrine

in 1989 in People v Osorio (75 NY2d 80). In that case, we

considered whether a defendant who communicated with counsel in

the presence of a separately represented codefendant in a pending

criminal prosecution could prevent the codefendant from

testifying as to what he heard. The codefendant was at the time

acting as an interpreter between the defendant and his attorney. 

Although we acknowledged that the attorney-client privilege

would, ordinarily, protect communications between codefendants

that are shared for the purpose of "mounting a common defense,"

we ultimately held that it did not apply in that case because the

defendant "was not planning a common defense" and therefore did

not share a common legal interest with him (id. at 85). For

support, we relied on two federal decisions that applied the

common interest doctrine to statements made between codefendants

in furtherance of a joint trial strategy or defense: the court in

United States v McPartlin held that such communications were

privileged because they "were made in confidence to an attorney

for a co-defendant for a common purpose related to both defenses"

(595 F2d 1321, 1336 [7th Cir 1979]), and the court in Hyundee v

United States applied the same reasoning to communications

503[b][3]; Me. R. Evid. 502[b][3]; Miss. R. Evid. 502[b][3]; NH

Evid. R. 502[b][3]; N.D. R. Evid. 502[b][3]; 12 Okla. Stat.

§ 2502[B][3]; S.D. R. Evid. § 19-19-502[a][3]; Tex. R. Evid.

503[b][1][C]; Vt. R. Evid. 502[b][3]; but see D.R.E. 502[b][3]

[permitting disclosure to an attorney or client "representing

another in a matter of common interest"]). 

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between the attorneys of persons who were "subject to possible

indictment" (355 F2d 183, 185 [9th Cir 1965]). 

After Osorio, New York courts applied the common

interest doctrine in criminal as well as civil matters, to

communications of both coplaintiffs and codefendants, but always

in the context of pending or reasonably anticipated litigation. 

Indeed, until the First Department's decision in this case, New

York courts uniformly rejected efforts to expand the common

interest doctrine to communications that do not concern pending

or reasonably anticipated litigation (see e.g., Hyatt v State of

Cal. Franchise Tax Bd., 105 AD3d 186 [2d Dept 2013]; Hudson Val.

Mar., Inc. v Town of Cortlandt, 30 AD3d 377, 378 [2d Dept 2006];

Yemini v Goldberg, 12 Misc 3d 1141, 1143 [Sup Ct, Nassau County

2006]; Aetna Cas., 176 Misc 2d at 612-613; see also Allied Irish

Banks, P.L.C. v Bank of Am., N.A., 252 FRD 163, 171 [SD NY 2008]

[recognizing that New York limits the doctrine "to communications

with respect to legal advice 'in pending or reasonably

anticipated litigation'"]; 4-160 Bender's New York Evidence

§ 160.02[6][e][2015] [stating that the common interest doctrine

in New York is limited "to communication between counsel and

parties with respect to legal advice in pending or reasonably

anticipated litigation in which the joint consulting parties have

a common legal interest"]; Wright & Graham § 5493 n 67 [2015

Supp] [observing that the doctrine does not apply in New York

where clients did not fear litigation at the time the

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communication was made or disclosed]).3

C. The Present Appeal

The question presently before us is whether to modify

the existing requirement that shared communications be in

furtherance of a common legal interest in pending or reasonably

anticipated litigation in order to remain privileged from

disclosure, by expanding the common interest doctrine to protect

shared communications in furtherance of any common legal

interest. We adhere to the litigation requirement that has

historically existed in New York. 

As an exception to the general rule that communications

made in the presence of or to a third party are not protected by

the attorney-client privilege, our current formulation of the

common interest doctrine is limited to situations where the

benefit and the necessity of shared communications are at their

highest, and the potential for misuse is minimal. Disclosure is

privileged between codefendants, coplaintiffs or persons who

3 Other jurisdictions have embraced the same limitation

through judicial decision (see e.g., In re Santa Fe Intl Corp.,

272 F3d 705, 711 [5th Cir 2001] [holding that "there must be a

palpable threat of litigation at the time of the communication,

rather than a mere awareness that one's questionable conduct

might some day result in litigation, before communications

between one possible future co-defendant and another . . . could

qualify for protection"]; O'Boyle v Borough of Longport, 218 NJ

168, 193, 198-199 [2014]; Boyd v Comdata Network, Inc., 88 SW3d

203, 214-215 [Tenn App 2002]; Gallagher v Off. of the Attorney

Gen., 141 Md App 644, 676-677 [Ct Special App 2001]; Hicks v

Commonwealth of Va., 17 Va App 535, 538 [1994]; Visual Scene,

Inc. v Pilkington Bros., Plc., 508 So2d 437, 440 [Fla Dist Ct App

1987]).

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reasonably anticipate that they will become colitigants, because

such disclosures are deemed necessary to mount a common claim or

defense, at a time when parties are most likely to expect

discovery requests and their legal interests are sufficiently

aligned that "the counsel of each [i]s in effect the counsel of

all" (Chahoon, 62 Va at 841-842). When two or more parties are

engaged in or reasonably anticipate litigation in which they

share a common legal interest, the threat of mandatory disclosure

may chill the parties' exchange of privileged information and

therefore thwart any desire to coordinate legal strategy. In

that situation, the common interest doctrine promotes candor that

may otherwise have been inhibited. 

The same cannot be said of clients who share a common

legal interest in a commercial transaction or other common

problem but do not reasonably anticipate litigation. Bank of

America contends that highly regulated financial institutions

constantly face a threat of litigation and that the protection of

their shared communications is necessary to facilitate better

legal representation, ensure compliance with the law and avoid

litigation. But no evidence has been presented here that

privileged communication-sharing outside the context of

litigation is necessary to achieve those objectives. There is no

evidence, for example, that mergers, licensing agreements and

other complex commercial transactions have not occurred in New

York because of our State's litigation limitation on the common

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interest doctrine; nor is there evidence that corporate clients

will cease complying with the law. Rather, "when parties share

attorney-client communication for planning purposes outside of

the specter of anticipated litigation, such as when parties

cooperate to strengthen or obtain patent protection . . . it is

more likely that [they] would have shared information even absent

the privilege" (Melanie B. Leslie, The Costs of Confidentiality

and the Purpose of Privilege, 2000 Wis L Rev 31, 68 [2000]).

The merger at the heart of this dispute provides the

perfect example: Bank of America and Countrywide obtained

regulatory approval and filed the requisite disclosures in

anticipation of a closing merger, even when New York state courts

had made clear that their joint communications would not remain

privileged unless they were engaged in or anticipated litigation. 

Put simply, when businesses share a common interest in closing a

complex transaction, their shared interest in the transaction's

completion is already an adequate incentive for exchanging

information necessary to achieve that end. Defendants have not

presented any evidence to suggest that a corporate crisis existed

in New York over the last twenty years when our courts restricted

the common interest doctrine to pending or anticipated

litigation, and we doubt that one will occur as a result of our

decision today.

In short, we do not perceive a need to extend the

common interest doctrine to communications made in the absence of

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pending or anticipated litigation, and any benefits that may

attend such an expansion of the doctrine are outweighed by the

substantial loss of relevant evidence, as well as the potential

for abuse. The difficulty of defining "common legal interests"

outside the context of litigation could result in the loss of

evidence of a wide range of communications between parties who

assert common legal interests but who really have only non-legal

or exclusively business interests to protect. Even advocates of

a more expansive approach admit that "in a nonlitigation setting

the danger is greater that the underlying communication will be

for a commercial purpose rather than for securing legal advice"

(James M. Fischer, The Attorney-Client Privilege Meets the Common

Interest Arrangement: Protecting Confidences While Exchanging

Information for Mutual Gain, 16 Rev Litig 631, 642 [1997]). At

least one commentator has also observed that "[t]he greatest push

to expand the common interest privilege comes from corporate

attorneys representing multiple clients, often in an antitrust

context," and that it is in precisely this context "that the

potential for abuse is greatest" (Edna S. Epstein, The AttorneyClient Privilege and the Work-Product Doctrine 277 [5th ed

2007]). 

Indeed, Ambac argues that the very communications Bank

of America withheld from disclosure would have revealed that the

merging entities structured their transaction to conceal

Countrywide's fraudulent dealings and leave potential victims

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without recourse. Defendants and amici respond that there is no

evidence of actual abuse in this case or in jurisdictions that

have done away with a litigation requirement, but the potential

for abuse is sufficiently great, and the accompanying benefits so

few, that expansion is not warranted. 

Bank of America's remaining counterarguments do not

persuade us to the contrary. First, it contends that we should

not limit the common interest doctrine to pending or anticipated

litigation when the attorney-client privilege from which the

doctrine derives is not so limited. While it is true that the

attorney-client privilege is not tied to the contemplation of

litigation, the common interest doctrine does not need to be coextensive with the privilege because the doctrine itself is not

an evidentiary privilege or an independent basis for the

attorney-client privilege (see In re Megan-Racine Assocs, Inc.,

189 BR 562, 573 n 8 [Bankr ND NY 1995] [observing that it is not

necessary for the common interest doctrine to conform exactly

with the purposes of the attorney-client privilege]). Rather, it

limits the circumstances under which attorneys and clients can

disseminate their communications to third parties without waiving

the privilege, which our courts have reasonably construed to

extend no further than communications related to pending or

reasonably anticipated litigation.4

4 We need not decide in this appeal what it means to share

common legal interests in pending or anticipated litigation. We

hold only that such litigation must be ongoing or reasonably

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Second, Bank of America argues that our holding will

create an anomalous result: clients who retain separate attorneys

like defendants did here cannot protect their shared

communications absent pending litigation but the same

communications made in the absence of litigation would be

privileged if defendants had simply hired a single attorney to

represent them in the merger. In the joint client or co-client

setting, however, the clients indisputably share a complete

alignment of interests in order for the attorney, ethically, to

represent both parties. Accordingly, there is no question that

the clients share a common identity and all joint communications

will be in furtherance of that joint representation (see Grace M.

Giesel, End the Experiment: The Attorney-Client Privilege Should

Not Protect Communications in the Allied Lawyer Setting, 95 Marq

L Rev 475, 535 [2011-2012]). Not so when clients retain separate

attorneys to represent them on a matter of common interest. It

is less likely that the positions of separately-represented

clients will be aligned such that the attorney for one acts as

the attorney for all (see Chahoon, 62 Va at 841-842), and the

difficulty of determining whether separately-represented clients

share a sufficiently common legal interest becomes even more

obtuse outside the context of pending or anticipated litigation. 

Consequently, although a litigation limitation may not be

anticipated, and the exchanged communication must relate to it,

in order for the common interest exception to apply.

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necessary in a co-client setting where the fact of joint

representation alone is often enough to establish a congruity of

interests, it serves as a valuable safeguard against separatelyrepresented parties who seek to shield exchanged communications

from disclosure based on an alleged commonality of legal

interests but who have only commercial or business interests to

protect (see Megan-Racine, 189 BR at 573 [concluding that

"although total identity of interest is not necessary, the

parties asserting the privilege must have a common legal

interest," which "exists where the parties asserting the

privilege were co-parties to litigation or reasonably believed

that they could be made a party to litigation"] [emphasis in

original]).

Finally, Bank of America urges us to follow the lead of

the federal courts that have considered the question and extended

the common interest exception to communications in furtherance of

any common legal interest. To be sure, the Restatement and some

federal courts of appeals have eliminated the common law

requirement that shared communications relate to pending or

anticipated litigation (see Restatement [Third] of the Law

Governing Lawyers § 76[1] [1997]; Teleglobe, 493 F3d at 364;

United States v BDO Seidman, LLP, 492 F3d 806, 816 [7th Cir

2007]; In re Regents of the Univ. of Calif., 101 F3d 1386, 1390-

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1391 [Fed Cir 1996]).5 Like Proposed Rule 503(b)(3) of the

Federal Rules of Evidence -- which was proposed in 1972 but never

adopted -- they allow "attorneys representing different clients

with similar legal interests to share information without having

to disclose it to others . . . in civil and criminal litigation,

and even in purely transactional contexts" (Teleglobe, 493 F3d at

364). In their view, "[a]pplying the common interest doctrine to

the full range of communications otherwise protected by the

attorney-client privilege encourages parties with a shared legal

interest to seek legal assistance in order to meet legal

requirements and to plan their conduct accordingly" (BDO Seidman,

492 F3d at 816 [internal quotations and citation omitted]). 

But this expansion of the doctrine has not been

uniformly received (see nn 2,3, supra), and one treatise has

observed that the common interest exception in these

jurisdictions "is spreading like crabgrass to areas the drafters

of the Rejected Rule could have hardly imagined" (Wright & Graham

§ 5493 [2015 Supp]). 

We conclude that the policy reasons for keeping a

litigation limitation on the common interest doctrine outweigh

5 Although the Second and Ninth Circuits have made clear

that actual or ongoing litigation is not required, they do not

appear to have expressly decided whether there must be a threat

of litigation in order to invoke the exception (see Schaeffler v

United States, -- F3d --, 2015 WL 6874979 at *4-5 [2d Cir 2015],

citing United States v Schwimmer, 892 F2d 237 [2d Cir 1989];

United States v Zolin, 809 F2d 1411, 1417 [9th Cir 1987], affd in

part and vacated in part on other grounds, 491 US 554 [1989]).

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any purported justification for doing away with it, and therefore

maintain the narrow construction that New York courts have

traditionally applied.6 Accordingly, the order of the Appellate

Division should be reversed, with costs, the order of Supreme

Court reinstated and the certified question answered in the

negative.

6 The Legislature is free to consider the alternative

arguments articulated by the dissent and to expand the common

interest exception as other state legislatures have done (see

e.g., D.R.E. 502[b]).

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Ambac Assurance Corp., et al. v Countrywide Home Loans Inc.,

et al.

No. 80 

RIVERA, J.(dissenting):

The purpose of the attorney-client privilege is to

encourage candid and open communication between client and

attorney to promote the public interest "in the observance of law

and administration of justice" (Upjohn Co. v United States, 449

US 383, 389 [1981]). The assumption justifying this oldest of

common law evidentiary privileges is that it "fosters the open

dialogue between lawyer and client that is deemed essential to

effective representation" (Spectrum Sys. Intern. Corp. v Chem.

Bank, 78 NY2d 371, 377 [1991] [internal citations omitted]). 

Effective representation furthers the goal of compliance with the

law, thus benefitting not only clients but society in general.

Whether this privilege should extend to confidential

communications between separately represented parties, in which

they have a common legal interest in a transaction, not involving

pending or reasonably anticipated litigation, is the question

posed in this appeal, and one which I would answer in the

affirmative under the circumstances presented here. Given that

the attorney-client privilege has no litigation requirement and

the reality that clients often seek legal advice specifically to

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comply with legal and regulatory mandates and avoid litigation or

liability, the privilege should apply to private client-attorney

communications exchanged during the course of a transformative

business enterprise, in which the parties commit to collaboration

and exchange of client information to obtain legal advice aimed

at compliance with transaction-related statutory and regulatory

mandates.

I.

The attorney-client privilege recognized at common law

and codified at Civil Practice Law and Rules § 4503 "protects

confidential communications between a lawyer and client related

to legal advice sought by the client" (In re Nassau County Grand

Jury Subpoena Duces Tecum Dated June 24, 2003, 4 NY3d 665, 678

[2005]; see CPLR 4503). The privilege "encourage[s] full and

frank communication between attorneys and their clients and

thereby promote[s] broader public interests in the observance of

law and administration of justice" (Upjohn Co., 449 US at 389; 

Rossi v Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Greater New York, 73 NY2d

588, 592 [1989]; Matter of Jacqueline F., 47 NY2d 215, 218

[1979]). The free flow of information promotes effective

representation based on "sound legal advice or advocacy,"

leading, optimally, to the salutary goal of lawfully compliant

behavior (see Upjohn Co., 449 US at 389-390; Spectrum Sys.

Intern. Corp., 78 NY2d at 381; United States v Schwimmer, 892 F2d

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237, 243 [2d Cir 1989]). This goal justifies treatment of the

privilege "as an exception to the general requirement that all

persons give testimony upon facts within their personal knowledge

inquired of in a court of law" (Jacqueline F., 47 NY2d at 219). 

Notably, the privilege "is not tied to the

contemplation of litigation" (Spectrum Sys. Intern. Corp., 78

NY2d at 380) because litigation may not be the motivating factor

leading to a client's communication of private information. 

Rather, "[l]egal advice is often sought, and rendered, precisely

to avoid litigation, or facilitate compliance with the law, or

simply to guide a client's course of conduct" (id.). All the

more so in the corporate context, where corporate staff attorneys 

"may serve as company officers, with mixed

business-legal responsibility; whether or not

officers, their day-to-day involvement in

their employers' affairs may blur the line

between legal and nonlegal communications;

and their advice may originate not in

response to the client's consultation about a

particular problem but with them, as part of

an ongoing permanent relationship with the

organization"

(Rossi, 73 NY2d at 592-593).

In determining "what is encompassed by the privilege,

courts . . . must look to the common law" (Spectrum Sys. Intern.

Corp., 78 NY2d at 377). However, our inquiry considers the

circumstances of each case, relevant general principles, and

public policy informing the proper application of the privilege

(Matter of Priest v Hennessy, 51 NY2d 62, 68-69 [1980]; Spectrum

Sys. Intern. Corp., 78 NY2d at 380). In our analysis, just as we

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are cautious not to extend the privilege beyond the bounds of

necessity, we also carefully measure waivers of the privilege to

protect the parties' reasonable expectations in the privacy of

their communications (People v Osario, 75 NY2d 80, 84-85 [1989]). 

As the majority well details, third-party

communications destroy the privilege (majority op., at 8). This

waiver rule is subject to limitations that promote communication

and effective legal representation, as well as the parties

reasonable expectations in confidentiality (Osario, 75 NY2d at

84-85; see majority op., at 9).

Those same concerns were present in People v Osario,

when this Court recognized an exception to the waiver rule in the

criminal context -- referred to as the "joint defense exception"

-- by which a court treats as privileged any statements disclosed

by one defendant in the presence of a codefendant, where the

disclosure is for the purpose of mounting a common defense (75

NY2d at 85). The Court concluded that under those circumstances

a defendant has an expectation of the continued confidentiality

between attorney and defendant (id.).

Not long thereafter New York courts extended the

underlying rationale of Osario to civil cases (see Parisi v

Leppard, 172 Misc 2d 951, 956 [Sup Ct, New York County 1997];

Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co. v Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's, London,

176 Misc 2d 605, 612-613 [Sup Ct, NY County 1998], affd 263 AD2d

367 [1st Dept 1999], lv dismissed 94 NY2d 875 [2000]). Those

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courts generally required pending or reasonably anticipated

litigation in order to apply what was often termed a common

interest privilege (see e.g. Hyatt v State of Cal. Franchise Tax

Bd., 105 AD3d 186, 205 [2d Dept 2013]; Hudson Val. Mar., Inc. v

Town of Cortlandt, 30 AD3d 377, 378 [2d Dept 2006]).

However, it is worthy of note that the majority of

federal courts that have addressed the issue, and a significant

number of state jurisdictions, either through case law or by

statute, have held that the privilege applies even if litigation

is not pending or reasonably anticipated.1 Several legal

commentators also support a broad application of the privilege.

For example, the Restatement (Third) of the Law Governing Lawyers

1 See United States v Zolin, 809 F2d 1411, 1417 (9th Cir

1987) ("Even where the non-party who is privy to the

attorney-client communications has never been sued on the matter

of common interest and faces no immediate liability, it can still

be found to have a common interest with the party seeking to

protect the communications."), affd in part, vacated in part on

other grounds, 491 US 554 (1989); United States v BDO Seidman,

LLP, 492 F3d 806, 816 (7th Cir 2007); In re Teleglobe

Communications Corp., 493 F3d 345, 364 (3d Cir 2007); In re

Regents of Univ. of California, 101 F3d 1386, 1390-1391 (Fed Cir

1996); Schaeffler v United States, 806 F3d 34, 40 (2d Cir 2015);

Hanover Ins. Co. v Rapo & Jepsen Ins. Servs., Inc., 449 Mass 609,

616 (2007) (rejecting a litigation limitation on the common

interest doctrine); S.F. Pac. Gold Corp. v United Nuclear Corp.,

143 NM 215, 222 (NM Ct App 2007) ("A third party to whom

privileged disclosures are made under the common interest

doctrine may be a nonparty to any anticipated litigation and may

be a legal entity distinct from the client who receives the legal

advice"); see also D.R.E. 502 (b) (extending the attorney-client

privilege to confidential communications made by the client to a

lawyer "representing another in a matter of common interest").

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has adopted a rule that applies the attorney-client privilege to

disclosures by clients with a common interest in litigated or

nonlitigated matters (Restatement [Third] of the Law Governing

Lawyers § 76 [2000]). Similarly, Weinstein's on Evidence

explains that the common interest doctrine "should apply not only

if litigation is current or imminent but whenever the

communication is made in order to facilitate the rendition of

legal services to each of the clients involved in the conference"

(3-503 Weinstein's Federal Evidence § 503.21 [2015]). Indeed,

many courts and commentators recognize the important interests

served by the free flow of information between parties with a

common legal interest, even without the threat of litigation (see

BDO Seidman, LLP, 492 F3d at 816; In re Regents of Univ. of

California, 101 F3d at 1390-1391). 

Given the purpose of the attorney-client privilege to

encourage communication essential to the rendition of adequate

legal advice, I agree with the majority that we should stamp our

imprimatur on a "common interest doctrine" and its application in

civil cases (majority op., at 1, 14). I part company from the

majority in its adoption of a pending or reasonably anticipated

litigation requirement. Such requirement does not derive from

the common law roots of the attorney-client privilege, which

lacks any litigation requirement. Further, the rule adopted by

the majority ignores the unique common legal interests of parties

to a merger, and the statutory and regulatory compliance mandates

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as motivating factors for client exchanges in these types of

commercial transactions. The better rule is grounded not in the 

rote application of a litigation requirement, but in the legal

dynamics of a modern corporate transactional practice.

II.

A.

The legal demands of a highly-regulated financial

business environment affect the management of information shared

between client and attorney where separately represented parties

work collaboratively towards a mutual goal of transforming

existing business entities and relationships. Confidences shared

with attorneys under an appropriate common law privilege may

further compliance with legal mandates.

Where the government imposes regulatory and legal

requirements that invariably, if not specifically, anticipate

disclosure of information that is best developed by cooperation

among clients, application of the attorney-client privilege

strikes an appropriate balance between the benefits of

disclosure--ensuring legal advice that advances the creation of

accurate and compliant legally mandated information--and the

costs to the truth-seeking process of our legal system from

barring discovery of certain information. The privilege should

apply where disclosure of client communications facilitates the

provision of legal services to advance a joint strategy developed

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to ensure compliance with regulatory or other legal mandates for

the production of documents, and the framing of legal positions,

necessitated by regulatory and legal obligations. It should

apply to nonlitigation transactional matters in which the

separately represented parties share a common legal interest in

the transfer of liability to a successor, and in furtherance of

which the parties exchange information in the presence of a third

party to facilitate legal advice on a common strategy for

compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements,

necessarily accomplished by production of joint representations

essential to the transformative enterprise (see Anne King, The

Common Interest Doctrine and Disclosures During Negotiations for

Substantial Transactions, 74 U Chi L Rev 1411, 1417 [2007]).

As relevant to this appeal, where parties to a merger

agreement have a common legal interest in the successful

completion of the merger, the privilege should apply to

communications exchanged to comply with legal and regulatory

requirements related to consummation of the merger. This

application of the privilege functions as a narrowly crafted

exception to third-party waivers in the merger context, and is

justified because signatories to a pre-merger agreement are bound

with a common interest in completion of the merger. In such

case, the privilege would maximize the quality of disclosure

necessary for accurate and competent representation leading to

compliance with regulatory and legal mandates. In other words,

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the privilege encourages parties committed to a merger to

disclose confidential information to avoid submission of

incomplete or noncompliant documents.

B.

The majority concludes that the common interest

doctrine should apply solely to "codefendants, coplaintiffs or

persons who reasonably anticipate that they will become

colitigants" because for these actors, the threat of litigation

"may chill the exchange of privileged information" necessary to

"coordinate legal strategy" or "mount a common claim or defense"

(majority op., at 14-15). The majority's reasoning for adopting

a litigation requirement is doctrinally and pragmatically

unpersuasive. 

First, the common interest doctrine is grounded in the

attorney-client privilege, which has no litigation requirement. 

Indeed, the majority's underlying premise--that the privilege is

necessary to entice parties to share confidential information

they would otherwise refuse to divulge--is true for any person

who seeks legal advice without the threat of litigation. Yet,

this Court has rejected this limitation on the common law and

statutory privilege (Spectrum Sys. Intern. Corp., 78 NY2d at

380). The majority responds that the common interest doctrine

need not be coextensive with the attorney-client privilege

because it is not an evidentiary privilege or an independent

basis for the attorney-client privilege (majority op., at 18). 

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Putting aside that the doctrinal status of the common interest

doctrine is contested (see Katharine Traylor Schaffzin, An

Uncertain Privilege: Why the Common Interest Doctrine Does Not

Work and How Uniformity Can Fix It, 15 BU Pub Int LJ 49, 53

[2005]), the fact is that we are called upon in this case not to

create subclassifications for client-attorney communications, but

to determine "what is encompassed by the [attorney-client]

privilege" (Spectrum Sys. Intern. Corp., 78 NY2d at 377).

Which leads to the second flaw in the majority's

analysis, namely its limited view of the attorney-client

privilege in a transaction such as a merger. The majority

rejects the application of the privilege in this case as

unnecessary because parties to a business deal already have an

incentive to share information that will close the transaction. 

However, the majority fails to identify any distinction between

coparties or persons who reasonably anticipate litigation, and

parties committed to the completion of a merger. Both are

incentivized to cooperate in order to secure a mutually

beneficial outcome -- one a successful litigation outcome, the

other a successful commercial outcome. No rational basis exists

to recognize the expectations for maintaining confidences in the

former but not the latter.

Furthermore, to the extent the majority attempts to set

a bright-line rule, that the common interest doctrine should

apply only where parties with a common legal interest share

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information in reasonable anticipation of litigation, it ignores

the inherent vagueness in the term. Indeed, whether the parties

reasonably anticipated litigation inevitably requires judicial

consideration of case-specific facts.

Third, the majority's contention that application of

the privilege might lead to misuse is purely speculative 

(majority op., at 17). The majority notes the "potential for

abuse" of the common interest doctrine in the context of

corporate attorneys representing multiple clients (id.). 

However, there is certainly as much or more such potential in

assertions of the common interest doctrine by those

"anticipating" litigation and seeking to shield communications

from a potential adversary. In any event, the majority fails to

explain why a party's attempted abuse of the privilege cannot be

addressed through our legal system's existing methods for

preventing and sanctioning obstruction of proper discovery (see

e.g. CPLR 3126 [authorizing court to penalize for refusal to

comply with order or to disclose]).

There is also nothing to support the majority's

contention that the privilege will sweep too broadly due to the

difficulty of differentiating between common legal interests and

strictly business interests (id.). To the contrary, courts

realize that while the privilege encourages and protects an open

flow of communication, its scope extends only as necessary to

achieve its common law and statutory purposes of compliance with

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the law and effectuating the orderly administration of justice

(see Spectrum Sys. Intern. Corp., 78 NY2d at 380; Rossi, 73 NY2d

at 592). As a consequence the privilege is limited to matters of

common legal interest, and does not protect from discovery

communications exchanged to further commercial or personal

interests in the business deal, or efforts to leverage

information to enhance a client's financial position. The fact

is that courts are fully equipped to take on this challenge and

it is what they regularly do in discovery: separate privileged

communications from nonprivileged. This is certainly the case in

numerous federal and state courts that have adopted a

nonlitigation version of the common interest doctrine without

disastrous results,2 and there is no reason to presume New York

Courts are any less capable of making these same determinations. 

Hence, in a corporate merger case, like the one before us, the

common interest doctrine applies to communications made in the

presence of third parties in order to obtain legal advice on the

preparation of a joint proxy statement and federal securities

registration, but would not shield from discovery client

information shared during negotiations related solely to

commercial interests. 

Significantly, the common interest doctrine is also

2See Zolin, 809 F2d 1411 (9th Cir 1987); BDO Seidman, LLP,

492 F3d 806 (7th Cir 2007); In re Teleglobe Communications

Corp., 493 F3d 345 (3d Cir 2007); In re Regents of Univ. of

California, 101 F3d 1386 (Fed Cir 1996).

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circumscribed by two requirements. First, "the communication

must satisfy the requirements of the attorney-client privilege"

(Schwimmer, 892 F2d at 244 [holding that a "claim resting on the

common interest rule requires" the same showing as "all claims of

privilege arising out of the attorney-client relationship"]). 

Second, the communication must "further[] a common legal

interest" -- rather than commercial interest -- of the relevant

parties (Schaeffler v United States, 806 F3d 34, 40-41 [2d Cir

2015]).

The discovery process in the present case is

instructive. The challenged communications at issue consist of

366 communications made during the six-month period between the

signing of the pre-merger agreement and the merger. After Bank

of America withdrew the claim of privilege with respect to 28 of

those communications, a special referee conducted a review to

determine whether the remaining communications were properly

withheld. Those communications were distilled down to

corresponding documents, and the special referee reviewed a total

of 117 documents to determine whether (1) each qualified for

protection under the attorney-client privilege; and (2) if so,

whether that document was made for the purpose of furthering a

legal interest or strategy common to Bank of America and

Countrywide. As a result, three of the documents were found not

to qualify for the privilege because no legal advice was given or

requested, and an additional three were determined to contain

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both privileged and non-privileged material, requiring

redaction. The remaining 110 documents were deemed privileged

under the common interest doctrine. Clearly the process served

to ensure that only this very limited universe of documents from

a finite period in the transaction, fell squarely within the

bounds of the common interest doctrine and were therefore

properly withheld.

As an additional layer of protection, the crime-fraud

exception to the attorney-client privilege continues to permit

discovery of communications "when the advice sought relates 'not

to prior wrongdoing, but to future wrongdoing' " (BDO Seidman,

LLP, 492 F3d at 818, quoting Zolin, 491 US at 562-563 [internal

quotation marks omitted]; see In re New York City Asbestos

Litig., 109 AD3d 7, 10-11 [1st Dept 2013] [crime-fraud exception

applies to communications made in furtherance of the fraud or

crime]).

III.

Here, the privileged communications were made in

furtherance of consummating the merger of defendant Countrywide

Financial Corporation (Countrywide Financial) and its

subsidiaries with defendant Bank of America Corporation's whollyowned subsidiary, Red Oak Merger Corporation. Defendant Bank of

America is a public holding company regulated by the Bank Holding

Company Act (12 USC §§ 1841 et seq.), and its subsidiary, Bank of

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America, N.A., is a federally chartered bank, governed by the

National Bank Act (12 USC §§ 22 et seq.) and regulated by the

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve

Board (see 12 USC § 1828).3 Countrywide Financial's subsidiary

bank was regulated by the Office of Thrift Supervision (see 12

USC §§ 1467 et seq. [Home Owners Loan Act]).4 Both Countrywide

Financial and Bank of America were public reporting companies

and, in anticipation of the merger, were required to satisfy US

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations,

necessitating filing of a proxy statement to stock holders, the

SEC's Form 8-K (i.e. to notify investors of the status of the

target company's outstanding stock) and Form S-4 (i.e. to

register newly issue shares acquired from the target company).

The documents for which defendants assert the privilege

thus fit neatly within the attorney-client privilege as refined

by the common interest doctrine. The defendants' attorneys

prepared disclosures required by federal law, including SEC joint

proxy statements and a Form S-4 registration statement. 

3 The Holding Company Act also requires prior written

approval from the Federal Reserve Board to acquire and to merge

with another bank holding company (see 12 USC § 1842).

4 In 2011, Office of Thrift Supervision was transferred to

the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency by the Dodd–Frank

Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Pub. L. 111–203,

§§ 1046, 1047[b]; 124 U.S. Stat. 1376, 2017 [2010]), and has

ceased to exist (see 12 USC § 5413).

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Countrywide was required to obtain the approval of its public

shareholders by soliciting proxies, which in turn required it to

file a proxy statement. Bank of America Corporation registered

the newly issued Bank of America shares it was using to pay for

Countrywide's outstanding shares. Bank of America and Countrywide

Financial also prepared preliminary and amended disclosures

necessary for this joint proxy/registration statement filing. 

Bank of America and Countrywide attorneys provided

legal advice regarding notice of the acquisition to Countrywide's

subsidiary bank account holders via the filing of a proxy

statement, and Bank of America and Countrywide consulted on

providing legal advice regarding draft written testimony in

preparation for and in response to Federal Reserve hearings. 

Additionally, Bank of America and Countrywide attorneys

communicated regarding analyses of lending and servicing

practices to ensure that immediately after the merger's closing,

the new mortgage business would comply with all applicable

mortgage lending and servicing regulations, including

fair-lending laws, consumer-protection laws, foreign registration

requirements, and conform to changes in the governing state and

federal regulations. Under these circumstances, the privilege

should extend to defendants' pre-merger client communications,

exchanged to secure legal advice in furtherance of defendants'

common interest in the merger.

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IV.

The attorney-client privilege is a long-standing

exception to the general rule promoting discovery as part of the

truth-finding process, and one tolerated because it serves the

individual and societal goals of furthering the proper

administration of justice by encouraging the free flow of

information essential to legal representation. It has never been

limited to client communications involving pending or anticipated

litigation. Even so, the privilege is deemed waived where a

client shares information with a third party, under circumstances

that reflect the client's disinterest in the continued protection

of the confidences. However, where parties to a merger seek to

comply with legal requirements and agree to treat as confidential

any exchanges of information made for purposes of seeking legal

and regulatory advice to complete the merger, the parties cannot

be assumed to have vitiated the private nature of the

information, or to harbor an unreasonable expectation of privacy

in these exchanges. Therefore, extension of the attorney-client

privilege to these communications is fully in line with the goals

of our common law and the needs of our complex system of

commercial regulation.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Order of the Appellate Division, First Department, reversed, with

costs, order of Supreme Court, New York County, reinstated and

certified question answered in the negative. Opinion by Judge

Pigott. Judges Abdus-Salaam, Stein and Fahey concur. Judge

Rivera dissents in an opinion in which Judge Garcia concurs. 

Chief Judge DiFiore took no part.

Decided June 9, 2016

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