By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS, May 13 (Reuters) - Broadcom is suing EU antitrust regulators over their requests for documents containing legal advice from its U.S. lawyers in a case related to VMware, which it acquired in 2023, the U.S. chip company said on Wednesday.
Broadcom, which took its grievance to the Luxembourg-based General Court, Europe's second-highest, said it is acting on a matter of principle.
"This filing is a procedural action solely to protect Broadcom's rights under the long-recognized
rules on legal professional privilege in non-EU countries, including the U.S.," the company said in an email.
"As a U.S.-headquartered company with global operations, Broadcom regards legal professional privilege as a fundamental right that must be protected and our action is narrowly tailored to address only this interest," it said, adding that it is otherwise cooperating with the European Commission's requests for information.
The attorney-client privilege protects confidential communications between lawyers and their clients, which were made for the purpose of requesting or rendering legal advice. Rules pertaining to this privilege vary in different jurisdictions.
In the European Union, this status covers only communications between a company and its external lawyers but not in-house lawyers.
The Commission, which acts as the EU competition enforcer, said it is ready to defend all its decisions in court.
Broadcom was hit with an EU antitrust complaint by lobbying group CISPE in March, which called upon regulators to temporarily stop the company from ending its VMware Cloud Service Provider programme in Europe.
CISPE, which has nearly 50 members across Europe and counts Microsoft and Amazon as associate members and has taken the Commission to court for clearing the VMware deal, criticised Broadcom's lawsuit.
"Broadcom cannot demand complete disclosure from CISPE members affected by its practices while simultaneously maintaining opacity around its own internal communications and relevant evidence in the ongoing anti-trust investigation," it said.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee in Brussels; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
