IANAL but what I meant was that information shared between an attorney and a client is legally protected confidential information–it can’t be subpoenaed, for example, and an attorney cannot be required to testify against a client. I would also include in that category information shared between corporate insiders that is material to the stock price.
For example, if you received an email from a person to his attorney that said, “I know you want to me to plead not guilty but I have nightmares every night because I killed him!”, and then offered it to prosecutors, you might have a problem.
Or if you got an email between corporate officers talking about offering above-market price to acquire a company and then you bought stock in the acquisition target, you might have a problem.
The first, perhaps, though I don’t know if privilege counts if someone blabs to an outsider.
The second is evidence of a crime. Of course you can report it. The information is not privileged in any way and no disclaimer can prohibit reporting a crime.
I’ve noticed that Google Mail for corporations has a gentler version of the disclaimer, sort of, “If you got this in error, please don’t pass it along to anyone else, and please notify the sender of the error.”
The accused is unintentionally blabbing–he just typed in the wrong email address. He meant to send it to his attorney. It might still be considered a privileged communication (but I don’t know the law on this).
I am a little confused by this response. The second example is in no way whatsoever a crime and did not refer to reporting a crime. These are two corporate officers discussing a legitimate business deal, and one of them typed your email address by accident. The only crime would be if *you * used this insider information to profit from it, or passed it to someone else who did.
What if I received exactly that email, printed it out, then sold it to the tabloids, who then printed it. Could I be charged with a crime? The tabloid?
