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Case 18-2868, Document 280, 08/09/2019, 2628232, Page53 of 74 Court of Appeals case somewhat extended this privilege by holding that statements made by attorneys prior to the commencement of the litigation are protected by a qualified privilege if those statements are pertinent to a good faith anticipated litigation. /d. at 718. (“Although it is well settled that statements made in the course of litigation are entitled to absolute privilege, the Court has not directly addressed whether statements made by an attorney on behalf of his or her client in connection with prospective litigation are privileged” . . . “to advance the goals of encouraging communication prior to the commencement of litigation” . . . “we hold that statements made prior to the commencement of an anticipated litigation are privileged, and that the privilege is lost where a defendant proves that the statements were not pertinent to a good faith anticipated litigation.”). The Court of Appeals’ reason for allowing this qualified privilege could not be more clear: “When litigation is anticipated, attorneys and parties should be free to communicate in order to reduce or avoid the need to actually commence litigation. Attorneys often send cease and desist letters to avoid litigation. Applying privilege to such preliminary communication encourages potential defendants to negotiate with potential plaintiffs in order to prevent costly and time consuming judicial intervention.” /d. at 719-20. Under this rationale, the Khalil court found that an attorney’s letters to the potential defendant were privileged because they were sent “in an attempt to avoid litigation by requesting, among other things, that Khalil return the alleged stolen proprietary information and cease and desist his use of that information.” /d. at 720. Here, quite unlike Khalil, the Defendant’s statements were (1) made by a non-attorney (Defendant through Gow); (2) concerning a non-party to any alleged anticipated litigation; (3) knowingly false statements; and (4) contained in a press release directed at, and disseminated to, 45