Can I show my co-author the final version of an accepted publication I reviewed? I was reviewing a journal paper recently that is closely related to work a colleague and I are doing. We are currently in the process of writing up our paper, and I plan to cite the paper I reviewed in ours. The paper I reviewed has been accepted after two rounds, but has not appeared in print yet. The author does not have a preprint on their website (or other preprint services). We don't build on the reviewed paper I want to cite directly, but our work is closely related. In the future we will probably start building on the reviewed paper, so I want my co-author to be aware of it as soon as possible.

Can I send the last version of the reviewed paper (that I saw) to my colleague? Can I cite the paper as "(in press)" if I submit our paper before the reviewed paper finally appears in print?
No, you cannot. Until the paper is publicly available you cannot show it to anyone nor even acknowledge its existence. The only slight exception I would make is that if a colleague was going to pursue similar/identical research, I would tell them they might want to contact the author. I would assume that this would result in my identity as a reviewer being revealed.

Your options are:


Submit your manuscript as is, but add the citation as soon as it become public.
Reveal your identity as a reviewer and ask the author for a preprint.


Option 1 is reasonable since you believe the existence of the paper is not critical to your paper. Option 2 is okay, but remember the reviewers of you manuscript will not have easy access to the cited material.