Exceptions To Confidentiality In Arbitration

Wilson v Emmott (March 2008) concerned an appeal against an order for disclosure in court proceedings in NSW and BVI of documents generated in an English arbitration involving the same parties.

The Court of Appeal refused the appeal concluding that, while the conduct of arbitrations is private, that did not mean that arbitrations remain private for all purposes. Despite there being allegations of a commercially sensitive nature, disclosure was required in the interests of justice (which were not limited to the interests of justice in England) that foreign courts would not be potentially misled, particularly where the cases being pursued in the foreign courts raised the same or similar allegations.