Relevant principles
14 This application falls to be determined by reference to the common law respecting legal professional privilege, as declared in Esso Australia Resources Limited v Commissioner of Taxation of the Commonwealth of Australia (1999) 201 CLR 49. In that case, the High Court, by majority, held that the dominant purpose test, and not the sole purpose test, applies in determining whether the privilege attaches to a particular communication.
15 A formulation of the dominant purpose test was stated by Barwick CJ in Grant v Downs (1976) 135 CLR 674 at 677:
… a document which was produced or brought into existence either with the dominant purpose of its author, or of the person or authority under whose direction, whether particular or general, it was produced or brought into existence, of using it or its contents in order to obtain legal advice or to conduct or aid in the conduct of litigation, at the time of its production in reasonable prospect, should be privileged and excluded from inspection.
16 In Trade Practices Commission v Sterling (1979) 36 FLR 244, Lockhart J noted various classes of documents in which legal professional privilege can exist. At 245-246, his Honour said:
Legal professional privilege extends to various classes of documents including the following:
(a) Any communication between a party and his professional legal adviser if it is confidential and made to or by the professional adviser in his professional capacity and with a view to obtaining or giving legal advice or assistance; notwithstanding that the communication is made through agents of the party and the solicitor or the agent of either of them. See Wheeler v. Le Marchant; Smith v. Daniell; Bullivant v. Attorney-General for Victoria; Jones v. Great Central Railway Co., and O'Rourke v. Darbishire.
(b) Any document prepared with a view to its being used as a communication of this class, although not in fact so used. See Southwark Water Co. v. Quick.
(c) Communications between the various legal advisers of the client, for example between the solicitor and his partner or his city agent with a view to the client obtaining legal advice or assistance. See Hughes v. Biddulph.
(d) Notes, memoranda, minutes or other documents made by the client or officers of the client or the legal adviser of the client of communications which are themselves privileged, or containing a record of those communications, or relate to information sought by the client's legal adviser to enable him to advise the client or to conduct litigation on his behalf. See Woolley v. North London Railway Co.; Greenough v. Gaskell; Corporation of Bristol v. Cox; Woolley v. Pole; Seabrook v. British Transport Commission; Grant v. Downs, and Bray, Principles and Practice of Discovery (1885) pp. 388-389.
(e) Communications and documents passing between the party's solicitor and a third party if they are made or prepared when litigation is anticipated or commenced, for the purposes of the litigation, with a view to obtaining advice as to it or evidence to be used in it or information which may result in the obtaining of such evidence. See Wheeler v. Le Marchant; Laurenson v. Wellington City Corporation, and O'Sullivan v. Morton.
(f) Communications passing between the party and a third person (who is not the agent of the solicitor to receive the communication from the party) if they are made with reference to litigation either anticipated or commenced, and at the request or suggestion of the party's solicitor; or, even without any such request or suggestion, they are made for the purpose of being put before the solicitor with the object of obtaining his advice or enabling him to prosecute or defend an action. See Wheeler v. Le Marchant; Cork v. Union Steamship Co., and In Re Holloway.
(g) Knowledge, information or belief of the client derived from privileged communications made to him by his solicitor or his agent. See Kennedy v. Lyell and Lyell v. Kennedy (No. 2).
17 In the present case, the claims of privilege relate only to advice privilege.
18 The following principles, relevant to the present claims, emerge from the cases in relation to the question of purpose:
A dominant purpose is to be understood in the sense of "the ruling, prevailing, paramount or most influential purpose": Commissioner of Taxation (Cth) v Pratt Holdings Pty Ltd (2005) 225 ALR 266 at [30] (Pratt); AWB Limited v Cole (2006) 152 FCR 382 at [105]; Wingecarribee Shire Council v Lehman Brothers Australia Limited (in liq) (No 5) [2011] FCA 245 at [18].
If the most that can be said of a communication is that the purposes for which the communication (here, in each case, a document) comes into existence include a purpose of obtaining legal advice or assistance, the privilege will not apply: Esso at [50].
For example, where two purposes for the creation of the document can be discerned, and they are of equal weight, neither is dominant in the relevant sense: Pratt at [30]. Similarly, if several purposes can be discerned, and they are of roughly similar weight, it cannot be said that one prevails over the other: AWB at [106]. Accordingly, a document is not privileged from production where one purpose for its creation is to obtain legal advice or assistance, but there are one or more other equally important purposes.
The relevant time at which a claim for privilege is to be determined is the time when the document comes into existence: Barnes v Commissioner of Taxation (Cth) (2007) 242 ALR 601 at [5].
When applying the dominant purpose test, an appropriate starting point is to ask what was the intended use or uses of the document which accounted for it being brought into existence: Pratt Holdings Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Taxation (2004) 136 FCR 357 at [35].
Where the document is immediately communicated by its author to several other persons, including the author's legal adviser, such as by a circular email, it is also important to ask what was the dominant purpose of that email communication: AWB at [107].
Ordinarily, the relevant purpose will be that of the author of the document. However, this will not always be the case. The relevant purpose may be found in the person under whose direction or authority, whether particular or general, the document was brought into existence or communicated: Grant at 677; see also Mitsubishi Electric Australia Pty Ltd v Victorian WorkCover Authority (2002) 4 VR 332 at [14].
The evidence of the author's intention, or of the person under whose direction or authority the document was brought into existence or communicated, is not necessarily conclusive of that purpose. The dominant purpose must be determined objectively, having regard to the evidence, the nature of the document and the parties' submissions: Pratt at [30].
The courts have recognised that legal advisers, in addition to providing legal advice, may also advise on more general or broader issues concerning the financial and commercial dealings of their clients. Although the courts have taken a pragmatic or realistic view where mixed advice is given, the test, nevertheless, remains whether the dominant purpose of the creation of the document was for the provision of legal advice or assistance. If the advice given by a legal adviser is predominantly for a financial, personal or commercial purpose, as opposed to seeking legal advice or assistance, it will not be protected by the privilege: Barnes at [8]. Thus, the fact that a document is provided to solicitors for advice is not determinative of the purpose for which it was created: Pratt at [30]
The privilege can attach to a copy of a document, if the copy was made for the dominant purpose of obtaining legal advice: Barnes at [10]-[11].
It is possible that an original document which is not created for the dominant purpose of seeking legal advice or assistance is not privileged, while a copy of the document may be privileged if made for the dominant purpose of obtaining legal advice or assistance. By the same token, an original document might be privileged, while a copy of the same document might not be privileged, such as where the copy is created for the purpose of commercial negotiation: Barnes at [11]. In that latter case, the consequence of the use of the copy may be the waiver of privilege in the original.
Generally, an intra-company disclosure of legal advice in circumstances where the confidentiality of the advice is maintained will not result in loss of the privilege: GEC Marconi Systems Pty Ltd v BHP Information Technology Pty Ltd [2000] FCA 593 at [9]-[10]; Seven Network Limited v News Limited [2005] FCA 1342 at [26].
Where a document contains both privileged and non-privileged matter, it may be possible, in an appropriate case, to order disclosure of that part of the document which contains non-privileged matter whilst retaining the confidentiality of the privileged matter: Waterford v The Commonwealth of Australia (1987) 163 CLR 54 at 66, 87 and 103; GEC Marconi Systems at [11]; Grofam Pty Limited v Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (1993) 43 FCR 408 at 414-417. That said, the presence in the document of matter other than legal advice may raise a question as to the purpose for which the document was brought into existence. This will be a question of fact: Waterford at 66.
19 The sufficiency of evidence to support a claim of legal professional privilege is an important consideration. In Barnes at [18], the Full Court said:
[18] The authorities emphasise the need for focused and specific evidence in order to ground a claim for legal professional privilege. In Kennedy v Wallace (2004) 142 FCR 185; 213 ALR 108; [2004] FCAFC 337 (Kennedy), Black CJ and Emmett J reiterated the principles that verbal formulae and bare conclusory assertions of purpose are not sufficient to make out a claim for privilege: see also National Crime Authority v S (1991) 29 FCR 203 at 211; 100 ALR 151 at 158-60 (per Lockhart J); Grant at CLR 689; ALR 589 (per Stephen, Mason and Murphy JJ). Where possible the court should be assisted by evidence of the thought process behind, or the nature and purpose of advice being sought in respect of, each particular document. The fact that generalised evidence is not challenged in cross-examination does not mean that such evidence must be accepted, particularly when it is as manifestly inadequate as it is in this case. As in Kennedy, mere general assertions of the purpose of creation of the documents are insufficient to discharge this onus. Even though in that case some evidence as to the purpose of particular records was adduced, Allsop J at [168] considered that the onus had not been discharged because the evidence did not permit a conclusion to be drawn as to the dominant purpose of the creation of any particular document or entry in a document. Simply to show that one purpose for creation of the document was to obtain legal advice or assistance is not good enough.
20 These observations are particularly pertinent to the present case. I have gained little assistance from Mr Woodbury's affidavit, which contains the kinds of verbal formulae and bare conclusory assertions to which the above passage refers.