The plaintiffs moved to compel the defendants, Saad Aljabri and Mohammed Aljabri, to produce law firm trust ledgers and to answer certain questions from examinations.
The court held that trust ledgers are presumptively protected by solicitor-client privilege and that the plaintiffs failed to rebut this presumption.
The court further concluded that the "crime/fraud" exception to solicitor-client privilege does not apply to civil wrongs, including civil fraud, following the principle of horizontal stare decisis.
Consequently, the motion to compel production of trust ledgers was dismissed.
The motion to compel Mohammed Aljabri to answer undertakings and other questions was allowed, subject to redactions for privileged information in bank statements.