On February 10, 2026, federal district court Judge Jed S. Rakoff ruled from the bench in the Southern District of New York that the attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine did not protect legal strategy materials that a criminal defendant generated using a generative AI tool, when he used a public version of the tool and was not instructed by his attorney to generate these materials.  On February 17, 2026, the court issued a written memorandum explaining its reasoning.  

The question presented – an issue of first impression – was: “whether when a user communicates with a publicly available AI platform in connection with a pending criminal investigation, are the communications protected by attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine?”  The court’s answer was no given the unique circumstances of the case – namely, that no lawyer was involved in the back-and-forth with the AI tool, and the tool itself was a public (i.e., non-confidential) version. 

Below, we summarize the background of the case, the decision, and key takeaways on AI and Legal Privilege.

On January 17^th, 2026, the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (“BBNJ”) Agreement, also known as the “High Seas Treaty”, entered into force.  For the first time, companies that use marine genetic resources (“MGRs”) and digital sequence information (“DSI”) originating from areas beyond national jurisdiction may be required to share monetary and non-monetary benefits at a global level.

This marks a significant expansion of access and benefit-sharing (“ABS”) obligations for companies.  Until now, under the Convention on Biological Diversity (“CBD”) and its Nagoya Protocol, ABS obligations applied only to genetic resources originating within national jurisdictions.  The BBNJ Agreement fundamentally changes this landscape: companies in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, cosmetics, food and feed that rely on marine-derived compounds, microorganisms or genetic data may now face new reporting and annual payment obligations.

Companies should not assume a long transition period.  Implementation is already advancing.  The European Commission has published a draft Directive (“draft EU Directive”), and the United Kingdom adopted the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Act 2026 (“UK Act”) on February 12^th, 2026. Companies should therefore assess now whether their R&D pipelines, data use practices, or product portfolios fall within scope.

In this blog, we examine how the BBNJ Agreement and its EU and UK implementation could affect companies using MGRs and DSI, and identify the key compliance risks and strategic questions for in-house counsel and senior management.

On 3 February 2026, the second International AI Safety Report (the “Report”) was published—providing a comprehensive, science-based assessment of the capabilities and risks of general-purpose AI (“GPAI”). The Report touts itself as the largest global collaboration on AI safety to date—led by Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio, backed by an Expert Advisory Panel with nominees from more than 30 countries and international organizations, and authored by over 100 AI experts.

The Report does not make specific policy recommendations; instead, it synthesizes scientific evidence to provide an evidence base for decision-makers. This blog summarizes the Report’s key findings across its three central questions: (i) what can GPAI do today, and how might its capabilities change? (ii) what emerging risks does it pose? And (iii) what risk management approaches exist?