okay in this video I want to take a look at without prejudice communications in
disputes and in particular in legal proceedings or threatened legal
proceedings or legal proceedings as I say there are threatened and that may be
a dispute you may have received a letter and been made an offer on without
prejudice basis and you may also if you're leaving a job and there was a
settlement agreement or an exit package going to be put on the table you may
have been offered an agreement on without prejudice subject to contract
basis what is what does this actually mean for the ordinary person it might be
difficult to understand the difference between without prejudice correspondence
at ordinary correspondence first thing to be said though that in relation to
without prejudice communication is that communication involves both written and
oral communication so you may have a chat with somebody off the record and it
should be after record or you may enter into without prejudice correspondence
either way without prejudice rule should apply but you need to be careful so what
does without prejudice communications actually mean what is the without
prejudice rule let's take a look without prejudice rule or principle is one which
states that statements made orally or in writing a marked without prejudice with
a view to settling a dispute will normally not be admissible in evidence
against the party who makes a statement or writes the letter so essentially
somebody is going to write a letter to try to compromise a dispute there will
probably be some form of offer or some form of compromise from previously
stated position and this will be made on or without prejudice basis it's widely
regarded as a good thing that parties to a dispute will attempt
to settle their differences rather than going to court on every occasion
clearly there's cost involved and going to court and
the more that disputes between people between companies between parties can be
settled without the need to go to court and the expense involved the better so
that's why this general principle of being able to engage in with our
correspondence or off-the-record chats or conversations with other parties is
generally accepted on public policy grounds it's a good thing
defective without prejudice generally concession offered any without prejudice
letter cannot be referred to later on if the matter is not settled and of course
ahead to court so you know any offer of a dinner in without prejudice letter
cannot be open to the court the effective or the label then just because
there's a principle of without prejudice and just because it's accepted that it's
a good thing doesn't mean that all correspondence that's marked with the
without prejudice label is going to be genuinely without prejudice
correspondence enough opened to a court or to a dispute resolution body so using
the labor will not divine protection if the correspondence is not a genuine
attempt to settle the dispute another way to think of without prejudice
correspondence which will have protection later on is without prejudice
correspondence which makes some type of concession is generally going to get the
benefit of the principle if it does not make a concession or if it does not try
to resolve the dispute then it may not be have the benefit or protection of the
without prejudice rule open correspondence then is the opposite of
without prejudice correspondence and open correspondence or an open letter an
open offer may be made in a litigation situation in a legal dispute may be made
for tactical reasons exceptions to the world without prejudice rule like
everything else in law there's a rule and then there's exceptions so there are
a number of various exceptions which have been recognized by the courts down
through the years as full of them there on the screen as
you can see for example when the communications demonstrate the fact of a
concluded settlement agreement so if there's a computed settlement agreement
at one of the parties then looks to resign from that agreement then the
without prejudice correspondence can be open to the court prove that there was
in fact the settlement agreement agreed and signed by both parties it may also
be open to a court to look at without prejudice correspondence in order to
interpret a settlement agreement there may be a settlement agreement both
parties may have signed us however there may be dispute about a particular term
or a particular effect of a condition in the agreement also without prejudice
correspondence may be open to court if it's to provide evidence that a
settlement agreement it should be set aside on the basis of fraud or
misrepresentation so if one of the parties engages in fraudulent conductor
makes fraudulent misrepresentations or warranties or assertions then if the
other party wants to have the agreement set aside they can rely on opening it
without prejudice correspondence to the court also where the communication is
evidence of perjury or blackmail or other serious impropriety and without
prejudice letter or correspondence can be open to the court employment related
settlements or exit deals these typically are negotiated on without
prejudice basis in the first instance so the communication will be from the
employer to the employee and the employer will be asking the employee to
encourage the employee to get legal advice so that this internation -
without prejudice communications and so on and my contact details are
there on the screen I hope you find this video useful if you do give it the
thumbs up down below and you might be interested in subscribing to my youtube
channel have a lot of videos on my youtube channel about all aspects of
Irish law including employment property family law litigation all sorts of
stuff Thanks