Day 263 - 14 Jun 96 - Page 21
1
2 The only other point I think I have left is to just bring
3 up some points about the blanking out of individual parts,
4 based on the GE Capital case. Have you got that case in
5 front of you?
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
8
9 MS. STEEL: Obviously, you are familiar with it, so I will not
10 read through it all, but if I refer to a couple of bits --
11 well, it might be slightly more than that. On
12 page 173 -----
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am using the transcripts at the moment.
15 Whose judgment is it?
16
17 MS. STEEL: Hoffmann L.J..
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19 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is it towards the end?
20
21 MS. STEEL: It is towards the beginning; it is actually the
22 third paragraph. It is just where he is describing what
23 the blanking out is. He says that, in that case:
24
25 "All the blanked-out passages contain the names,
26 amounts or other details of other financing
27 transactions undertaken by GE which it says do
28 not 'relate to any matter in question between
29 [the parties] in the action.'"
30
31 Obviously, it could be said that other financial
32 transactions would have no relevance, whereas notes of a
33 meeting where the purpose of the notes is to give evidence
34 of what went on at those meetings, the entire notes would
35 be relevant. There are about one matter, and it is the
36 matter which is at issue in this case.
37
38 Going on in this same judgment, I think five paragraphs
39 after that, just after the indented bit, where it is
40 talking about the basis for saying whether or not something
41 is relevant, and it says:
42
43 "The oath of the party giving discovery is
44 conclusive, 'unless the court can be satisfied
45 -- not on a conflict of affidavits, but either
46 from the documents produced or from anything in
47 the affidavit made by the defendant, or by any
48 admission by him in the pleadings, or
49 necessarily from the circumstances of the case
50 -- that the affidavit does not truly state that
51 which it ought to state.'"
52
53 Obviously, in this case, we have not got an affidavit, but
54 our argument would be that we can see -- (a) from previous
55 experience, which I have run through, about occasions when
56 it has been said that all relevant parts have been
57 disclosed, and then some other parts which clearly were
58 relevant have been disclosed later; (b), which is more
59 important, from the subject of the notes themselves,
60 i.e. that they are about the meetings, which is the issue
