Jones v Treasury Wine Estates Limited; In the Matter of Treasury Wine Estates Limited (No 4)

Jones v Treasury Wine Estates Limited was heard by the Federal Court of Australia, where the primary dispute was whether the plaintiff's legal representatives had breached an implied undertaking by using documents and information derived from them in a subsequent proceeding against the same defendant. The court had to determine if the implied undertaking extended to information derived from discovered documents and whether it applied to pleadings. The secondary issue was whether, if a breach occurred, the lawyers should be granted leave nunc pro tunc to use the pleadings in the new proceeding.

The court first examined the nature of the implied undertaking, referencing the High Court decision in Hearne v Street, which established that such an obligation is substantive and arises from the circumstances under which the documents or information were obtained. The court further considered whether the obligation applied to information derived from discovered documents and extended to pleadings. The court found that the implied undertaking did indeed cover derived information and pleadings, supported by various judicial authorities. The court then assessed whether the plaintiff's lawyers' actions constituted a breach of this undertaking by using pleadings from the first case in drafting the new Statement of Claim. The court concluded that because the pleadings had been made publicly available on the court's website, the information was no longer confidential, and thus, the implied undertaking did not apply.

The court ruled that the lawyers had not breached the implied undertaking because the information had already been made public. Consequently, there was no need to grant leave nunc pro tunc for the use of the pleadings in the new proceeding. This decision reinforces the principle that once information is made public, it loses its protected status under the implied undertaking.