FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Pro-Pac Packaging (Aust) Pty Ltd v Penn [2020] FCA 540

ORDERS

THE COURT ORDERS THAT:

1.    The Prospective Applicant is released from its implied undertaking so as to permit use of the email from Wendy Penn to Nick Papadimatos and Nenad Milinkovic of 9 December 2019 at 10.13am, with the subject line ‘Emailing: ECO tray pricelist-04122019’ and its attachment in Federal Court proceedings NSD 127 of 2020.

2.    The matter be listed for case management hearing on 22 May 2020.

3.    The parties have liberty to apply on 3 days’ notice.

Note:    Entry of orders is dealt with in Rule 39.32 of the Federal Court Rules 2011.

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

(Revised from transcript)

BURLEY J:

1    The Prospective Applicant in the present proceedings is Pro-Pac Packaging (Aust) Pty Ltd. Brandon Penn, Nenad Milinkovic, and Gordon Fenbow are, respectively, the First, Second and Third Prospective Respondents. The Prospective Applicant now seeks an order that:

In respect of the email from Wendy Penn to Nick Papadimatos and Nenad Milinkovic of 9 December 2019 at 10.13 am, whose subject line is “Emailing: Eco tray pricelist-04122019” and its attachment, as produced in these proceedings by the First and Second Prospective Respondents, the [Prospective] Applicant is released from its implied undertaking so as to permit use of the document by the [Prospective] Applicant in [Federal Court] proceedings number NSD 127 of 2020.

2    These proceedings involve an application for preliminary discovery of certain documents from the Prospective Respondents. One of the documents produced in answer to that application is the email the subject of the proposed order. The proceedings in which the document is sought to be used, NSD 127 of 2020, involve some overlapping parties. The Applicant in those proceedings is the present Prospective Applicant. The Respondents are Linhua Packaging Pty Ltd, Mr Brandon Penn and Ms Wendy Penn. The solicitors for the First and Second Prospective Respondents in the present proceedings also act for the three Respondents in NSD 127 of 2020.

3    The bases on which the application for the order set out above is put is threefold. First, the parties in the present proceedings, and the Respondents in the NSD 127 of 2020 proceedings, consent to the order. Secondly, the document is a single email and attachment that the Prospective Applicant contends is likely to be relevant to the dispute in proceedings NSD 127 of 2020. Whilst the First and Second Prospective Respondents do not concede that the document is likely to be sufficiently relevant to be admissible in the proceedings, they do not otherwise dispute its relevance, or the making of the order. Thirdly, the document was generated in December 2019, prior to these proceedings and proceedings NSD 127 of 2020 being commenced, and it is apparent on the face of the document that it is a business record prepared before the commencement of the litigation.

4    The principles relevant to the ascertainment of the “special circumstances” required before a court will provide a release from an implied undertaking are well-established, and are set out in Liberty Funding Pty Ltd v Phoenix Capital Ltd [2005] FCAFC 3; 218 ALR 283 at [31]. See also, in the context of a preliminary discovery application, Rinehart v Rinehart (No 3) [2016] NSWSC 1645 at [12] to [15].

5    I am satisfied that special circumstances exist to warrant, that is to say, that there is good reason to justify the making of the order, substantially for the reasons provided in the submissions advanced on behalf of the Prospective Applicant.

Associate:    

Dated:    23 April 2020