Commissioner of Taxation v PricewaterhouseCoopers
[2022] FCA 278
At a glance
Source factsCourt
Federal Court of Australia
Decision date
2022-03-25
Before
Moshinsky J
Source
Original judgment source is linked above.
Judgment (166 paragraphs)
INTRODUCTION 1 The issue to be dealt with in these reasons is whether certain documents are subject to legal professional privilege. 2 The issue arises in the following way. 3 Flora Green Pty Ltd (Flora Green), JBS Holdco Australia Pty Ltd (JBS Holdco Australia) and JBS Australia Pty Ltd (JBS Australia) are Australian companies that are wholly owned (directly or indirectly) by JBS SA, a Brazilian multinational company listed on the Brazil Stock Exchange. JBS SA's Australian subsidiaries, including Flora Green, JBS Holdco Australia and JBS Australia, are referred to as the JBS Australia Group in these reasons. JBS SA and its subsidiaries, including the JBS Australia Group, are referred to as the JBS Global Group. Flora Green is the head company of a multiple entry consolidated (MEC) group, and JBS Holdco Australia and JBS Australia are subsidiary members of the group. 4 In February 2019, the Commissioner of Taxation (the Commissioner) commenced an audit of Flora Green, as head company of the MEC group. In the course of the audit, the Commissioner issued notices to produce documents under s 353-10 of Sch 1 to the Taxation Administration Act 1953 (Cth). The notices were issued to: (a) Glenn Russell, a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers Australia (PwC Australia), which is a multi-disciplinary partnership that provided services to the JBS Australia Group; and (b) Flora Green. 5 In response to the notices, legal professional privilege was claimed by PwC Australia (on behalf of Flora Green or another member of the JBS Global Group) and by Flora Green or another member of the JBS Global Group over approximately 44,000 documents. 6 The Commissioner disputes the claims of privilege over approximately 15,500 documents (the Documents in Dispute). They comprise emails and attachments to emails brought into existence between 3 September 2013 and 6 May 2016 (the Relevant Period). 7 By the present proceeding, the Commissioner seeks declaratory relief to the effect that the Documents in Dispute are not subject to legal professional privilege. The respondents to the proceeding are PwC Australia, Flora Green, JBS Holdco Australia and JBS Australia. I will refer to Flora Green, JBS Holdco Australia and JBS Australia as the JBS Parties. 8 In his amended originating application, the Commissioner relies on three grounds, which can be summarised as follows: (a) The form of the engagements, reflected in the relevant 'Statements of Work' by which PwC Australia purported to provide legal services to the JBS Parties, did not establish a relationship of lawyer and client sufficient to ground a claim for legal professional privilege. (b) Further or alternatively, as a matter of substance, the services provided by PwC Australia to the JBS Parties pursuant to the engagements, were not provided pursuant to a relationship of lawyer and client sufficient to ground a claim for legal professional privilege. (c) Alternatively, the Documents in Dispute are not, or do not record, communications made for the dominant purpose of giving or obtaining of legal advice from one or more lawyers (of PwC Australia). 9 The first two grounds are general grounds which, if made out, would apply to all of the Documents in Dispute. In contrast, the third ground requires a document-by-document analysis to determine whether the document is subject to legal professional privilege. 10 In his amended originating application, the Commissioner seeks declarations as follows: (a) A declaration that the Documents in Dispute are not, and do not record, communications fairly referable to a relationship of lawyer and client. (b) Further and alternatively, a declaration that the Documents in Dispute are not, and do not record, communications which are protected by legal professional privilege. 11 A number of case management hearings took place at which there was discussion as to how best to manage the proceeding given the large number of Documents in Dispute. That discussion took place in the context of the overarching purpose of the civil practice and procedure provisions, namely to facilitate the just resolution of disputes according to law, and as quickly, inexpensively and efficiently as possible: see s 37M of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 (Cth). 12 Ultimately, the Court decided to set down for hearing a separate question relating to 100 sample documents: 50 to be selected by the Commissioner, and 50 to be selected by the respondents. By an order made on 18 December 2020 (as varied by an order made on 7 May 2021), the following question (the Separate Question) was ordered to be determined separately and in advance of the other questions in the proceeding: In respect of the 50 sample documents identified by the applicant and the 50 sample documents identified by the respondents, is the applicant entitled to the relief sought in the amended application? 13 The Separate Question was set down for hearing in circumstances where the Commissioner (and his lawyers) did not have access (and were not expected to have access) to the Documents in Dispute, the documents being the subject of extant legal professional privilege claims. Thus, while the respondents had access to the Documents in Dispute in selecting their 50 sample documents, the Commissioner did not. The Commissioner had access to a schedule that listed the documents and provided some details about them. But he did not have access to the documents themselves. The Commissioner was therefore required to select his 50 sample documents without seeing the documents. 14 In circumstances where the Commissioner and his lawyers did not have access to the sample documents, the Court appointed three barristers as amici curiae to assist the Court in relation to the Separate Question (the Amici Curiae). The respondents did not object to the Amici Curiae having access to the sample documents and to the confidential material relied on by the respondents in relation to the privilege issue. 15 I will refer to the 50 sample documents selected by the Commissioner in his revised list of sample documents and the 50 sample documents selected by the respondents in their revised list of sample documents as the Sample Documents. 16 The respondents have provided a copy of the Sample Documents to the Court, with the documents arranged in chronological order, and with an index of the documents. Where a Sample Document comprises an email and an attachment or attachments, the respondents have treated this as two or more documents. Accordingly, the respondents' index comprises 116, rather than 100, documents. 17 As already noted, PwC Australia is a multi-disciplinary partnership, as distinct from a traditional law firm. It provides both non-legal and legal services. Some of its partners are Australian legal practitioners and some are not. 18 For present purposes, the relevant services were generally provided by PwC Australia to the JBS Parties pursuant to an umbrella engagement agreement dated 26 February 2014 and signed on 16 July 2014 (the Umbrella Engagement Agreement) and nine statements of work (with dates ranging from 31 October 2014 to 22 April 2016) (the Statements of Work). Each Statement of Work identified the particular work to be carried out and described the services to be provided as "legal services". Each Statement of Work: (a) identified the "PwC team" that would carry out the work under two headings: "Australian Legal practitioners" (ALPs) and "Non legal practitioners" (NLPs); (b) contained a statement to the effect that "Non legal practitioners may assist in the provision of the legal services under the direction of the Australian legal practitioners"; and (c) contained a statement to the effect that, "[t]o facilitate delivery of the services you [that is, the JBS Parties] appoint the non legal practitioners who assist in the provision of the legal services as your agents for the purpose of communications to and from the legal services team. This includes giving instructions to and receiving legal advice and services from the Australian legal practitioners". 19 Further, some of the Statements of Work set out the charge-out rates for each Australian legal practitioner and each non-legal practitioner. It is notable that, in such cases, the charge-out rate for at least one of the non-legal practitioners was higher than the charge-out rate (or rates) for the Australian legal practitioner (or practitioners). 20 For the reasons that follow, I do not accept the general propositions encapsulated in grounds (a) and (b) of the Commissioner's amended originating application. In summary, I am not satisfied that, as a general proposition, no relationship of lawyer and client (sufficient to ground a claim for legal professional privilege) came into existence. I am satisfied that, at least in some relevant circumstances, a lawyer-client relationship existed between Mr Russell (an Australian legal practitioner) (and other Australian legal practitioners at PwC Australia) and one or more of the JBS Parties. 21 It is therefore necessary to consider, on a document-by-document basis, whether each Sample Document is subject to legal professional privilege. This requires consideration of whether the Sample Documents are, or record, communications made for the dominant purpose of giving or receiving legal advice. This question is to be determined by reference to the content of the document, its context, and the relevant evidence relating to the document. A critical part of the context in the present case is that the services were provided by a multi-disciplinary partnership and that the team carrying out the work comprised both lawyers and non-lawyers. Another contextual matter is the involvement of overseas PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) firms in many of the same projects (under separate engagements). At least in the case of PwC Brazil and PwC USA, the overseas firms were not able to provide legal advice and made clear that they were not doing so. 22 For the reasons that follow, I have concluded that many of the Sample Documents are privileged, but that many are not. The Annexure to these reasons sets out, for each of the documents listed in the respondents' index of 116 documents, my conclusion as to whether the document is privileged ("P"), partly privileged ("PP") or not privileged ("NP"). Of the 116 documents listed in the Annexure, I have concluded that: (a) 49 are privileged; (b) 6 are partly privileged; and (c) 61 are not privileged. 23 These conclusions have been reached through a process of consideration of each of the Sample Documents. In many cases, I have concluded that the communication does not satisfy the dominant purpose test, that is, I have concluded that the document is not (and does not record) a communication made for the dominant purpose of giving or receiving legal advice. 24 For ease of reference in these reasons, I will refer to the Sample Documents by reference to the number appearing in the first column of the Annexure. Thus, Document 1 is the first document in the Annexure, which is the applicant's Sample Document 18. 25 Parts of my reasons are confidential because they disclose the contents of documents over which privilege is claimed. In the circumstances, I will make an order that, subject to further order, the Court's reasons for judgment of the date of this order be published only to the respondents and the Amici Curiae, and be kept confidential (save that the orders, the sections headed "Introduction", "The Sample Documents", "The Hearing and Evidence" and "Conclusion", and the Annexure will be provided to the applicant and made available to the public). This is to enable the respondents to prepare, within a period of seven days, proposed redactions to the Court's reasons for judgment. The Court will then prepare and publish redacted reasons for judgment, which will be provided to the applicant and made available to the public.