BRKK and Commissioner of Taxation (Taxation)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered the dispute between BRKK and the Commissioner of Taxation concerning the relevance of certain documents. BRKK sought to withhold documents from the Commissioner on the grounds of legal professional privilege, specifically relating to external legal advice.

The Tribunal was required to determine whether the documents in question were protected by legal professional privilege. This involved assessing whether the documents were created for the dominant purpose of obtaining or giving legal advice, and whether they fell within the scope of professional legal privilege.

Senior Member D Benk reasoned that legal professional privilege protects communications made for the dominant purpose of the client being able to obtain legal advice or for the lawyer giving that advice. The Tribunal considered the nature of the communications and the context in which they were created to ascertain the dominant purpose. The Tribunal found that the documents were indeed created for the dominant purpose of obtaining legal advice and were therefore privileged.