Part 8

Investigations
Chapter 2

England and Wales and Northern Ireland

Production orders

Further provisions
348
1
A production order does not require a person to produce, or give access to, privileged material.
2
Privileged material is any material which the person would be entitled to refuse to produce on grounds of legal professional privilege in proceedings in the High Court.
3
A production order does not require a person to produce, or give access to, excluded material.
4
A production order has effect in spite of any restriction on the disclosure of information (however imposed).
5
An appropriate officer may take copies of any material which is produced, or to which access is given, in compliance with a production order.
6
Material produced in compliance with a production order may be retained for so long as it is necessary to retain it (as opposed to copies of it) in connection with the investigation for the purposes of which the order was made.
7
But if an appropriate officer has reasonable grounds for believing that—
a
the material may need to be produced for the purposes of any legal proceedings, and
b
it might otherwise be unavailable for those purposes,
it may be retained until the proceedings are concluded.