Toulson & Phipps on Confidentiality, 5th Edition

Confidentiality is a complex subject. In the Fifth edition of Toulson & Phipps on Confidentiality, Charles Phipps, along with new editors Teen Jui Chow, Kelly Yu and Jonathan Mo, provides a comprehensive and authoritative combination of reference, analysis and procedure in relation to confidentiality across all relevant areas of law.

Key Features:

• Provides comprehensive guidance on the law of confidentiality.
• Sets out the principles and foundations underlying the law of confidence, identifying the essential elements of the equitable cause of action.
• Considers the widely varying circumstances in which duties of confidentiality may arise.
• Analyses the nature of confidential information, distinguishing what can and what can’t be protected.
• Discusses what counts as misuse of confidential information, and the different ways in which the unauthorised use of confidential information may be justified.
• Examines the remedies which may be available for breach of confidence – both before and after the event.
• Considers the impact of privacy rights and the new tort of misuse of private information.
• Summarises both the data protection and the freedom of information regimes, reviewing the principal case-law.
• Examines the confidentiality issues that arise in a variety of professional and other relationships, including medical advisers, bankers, broadcasters and journalists, teachers, clergy, counsellors , mediators, employers & employees, police, and lawyers.
• Illustrates how confidentiality operates within the legal process, with guidance on legal professional privilege, the without prejudice rule, and public interest immunity, as well as other forms of protection which are available to litigants.
• Considers, in particular, how children’s confidentiality in the legal process is maintained.
• Analyses the law of arbitral confidentiality.
• Includes up-to-date case law which can be cited in court.

The new edition considers a number of important legal developments, including:

• The decisions of the Supreme Court in Abbasi v Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust [2025] 2 WLR 815 and of the Court of Appeal in PMC v Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board [2025] EWCA Civ 1126, relating to the courts’ powers to preserve anonymity in litigation.
• The Supreme Court’s decisions in Lloyd v Google LLC [2022] AC 1217 on data protection and ZXC v Bloomberg LP [2022] AC 1158 on the misuse of private information.
• A new section on the interrelationship between actions for breach of confidence and the conflict of laws.
• Recent case-law on the Trade Secrets (Enforcement, etc.) Regulations 2018.
• The Court of Appeal’s decision in Glencairn IP Holdings Ltd v Product Specialities Inc (t/a Final Touch) [2020] EWCA Civ 609; [2021] Ch. 201, explaining when, why, and how an obligation of confidence may result in an injunction restraining lawyers from acting.
• The new transparency regime in the Family Courts.