South Australian Current Acts South Australian Current Acts67C—Exclusion of evidence of settlement negotiations
(1) Subject to this
section, evidence of a communication made in connection with an attempt to
negotiate the settlement of a civil dispute, or of a document prepared in
connection with such an attempt, is not admissible in any civil or criminal
proceedings.
(2) Such evidence is,
however, admissible if—
(a) the
parties to the dispute consent; or
(b) the
substance of the evidence has been disclosed with the express or implied
consent of the parties to the dispute; or
(c) the
substance of the evidence has been partly disclosed with the express or
implied consent of the parties to the dispute, and full disclosure of the
evidence is reasonably necessary to—
(i)
enable a proper understanding of the other evidence that
has already been adduced; or
(ii)
avoid unfairness to any of the parties to the dispute; or
(d) the
communication or document included a statement to the effect that it was not
to be treated as confidential; or
(e) the
proceeding in which the evidence is to be adduced is a proceeding to enforce
an agreement for the settlement of the dispute or a proceeding in which the
making of such an agreement is in issue; or
(f) the
evidence tends to contradict or to qualify evidence that has already been
admitted about the course of an attempt to settle the dispute; or
(g) the
making of the communication, or the preparation of the document, affects the
rights of a party to the dispute; or
(h) the
communication was made, or the document was prepared, in furtherance of—
(i)
the commission of a fraud or an offence; or
(ii)
the doing of an act that renders a person liable to a
civil penalty; or
(iii)
the abuse of a statutory power.
(3)
Subsection (1) does not apply to parts of a document that do not concern
attempts to negotiate a settlement of a dispute, if it would not be misleading
to adduce evidence of only those parts of the document.