"Without Prejudice" – But Is It Really?

The full version of this article was first published in Lloyd's List on 22 December 2011.

In October 2010, the Supreme Court extended the scope of the exceptions to the without prejudice rule to permit the admissibility of without prejudice negotiations for the purpose of construing the true meaning of a settlement agreement.

Is evidence of without prejudice negotiations admissible to resolve a dispute over the meaning of a term in a settlement agreement?

Until recently, the answer was probably not as this type of scenario fell outside the defined scope of the without prejudice rule's exceptions. The situation changed on 27 October 2010 when the Supreme Court extended the scope of the exceptions to the without prejudice rule to permit the admissibility of without prejudice negotiations in order to construe the true meaning of a settlement agreement (Oceanbulk Shipping and Trading S.A. v TMT Asia Ltd et al (2010)). Oceanbulk has been a useful reminder that the