Desane Properties Pty Limited v State of New South Wales [2018] NSWSC 173

Supreme Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: Desane Properties Pty Limited v State of New South Wales [2018] NSWSC 173 Hearing dates: 16, 24, 25 and 29 January 2018 Decision date: 22 February 2018 Jurisdiction: Equity - Commercial List Before: Robb J Decision: The parties are to prepare short minutes of order to give effect to these reasons for judgment Catchwords: EVIDENCE – Discovery – Objection to inspection – Privileges – Public interest immunity – Client legal privilege – whether documents discovered in response to stated categories are necessarily relevant to the issues in the proceedings – whether public interest immunity extends to the Cabinet documents for which immunity was claimed – whether client legal privilege established – problems involved in determining whether client legal privilege is established for chains of emails Legislation Cited: Evidence Act 1995 (NSW) ss 130, 131A Cases Cited: State of New South Wales v Public Transport Ticketing Corporation [2011] NSWCA 60 Ku-ring-gai Council v West [2017] NSWCA 54 The Commonwealth v Northern Land Council (1993) 176 CLR 604; [1993] HCA 24 Adelaide Brighton Cement Limited v South Australia (1999) 75 SASR 209 at 216; [1999] SASC 379 Harman v Secretary of State for the Home Department [1983] 1 AC 280 Murphy v Victoria (2014) 45 VR 119; [2014] VSCA 238 Hancock v Rinehart (Privilege) [2016] NSWSC 12 Esso Australia Resources Ltd v Federal Commissioner of Taxation (1999) 201 CLR 49; [1999] HCA 67 Commissioner of Australian Federal Police v Propend Finance Pty Ltd (1997) 188 CLR 501 Asahi Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd v Pacific Equity Partners Pty Ltd (No 4) [2014] FCA 796 Hutchins v Cap Coast Telecoms Pty Ltd (in liq) [2015] FCA 945 Kamasaee v Commonwealth of Australia [2016] VSC 404 Hancock v Rinehart [2017] NSWSC 530 FSR Limited v Eddie (2008) 70 NSWLR 725 Mark Ryan v State of Victoria [2015] VSCA 353 Category: Procedural and other rulings Parties: Desane Properties Pty Ltd (Plaintiff) State of New South Wales (first defendant) Roads and Maritime Services NSW (second defendant) Sydney Motorway Corporation Pty Ltd (third defendant) Representation: Counsel: M Robinson SC/D Pritchard SC/S McGee (plaintiff) R Bhalla/T Glover/N Compton (first defendant) G Sirtes SC/B Tronson (second defendant)