Pigozzo v Mineral Resources Ltd (No 3)

Pigozzo v Mineral Resources Ltd (No 3) [2025] FCA 1142 is a Federal Court decision about what the Court will do with pleadings, affidavits and other filed material after parties settle a dispute. The judgment is important because the parties were not just asking for the case to end. They wanted a package of consent orders dealing with strike-out of affidavit material, removal of documents from the court file, confidentiality restrictions, and suppression or non-publication of certain pleadings and information.

The Court had to decide those requests against the background of open justice. The catchwords make clear that some of the material had already been read and relied on in open court, some had been the subject of contested hearing in open court but not read, and some had not been publicly deployed in that way. That mattered because once material enters the public side of litigation, the Court does not treat later secrecy as a matter for private agreement alone.

For businesses, the practical point is immediate. If sensitive commercial or personal material is filed in court, later attempts to remove it, suppress it or restrict inspection may be possible, but they are not automatic. The Court will look at the governing rules, the statutory suppression regime, and the public interest in open justice, even where all parties consent and settlement depends on the proposed orders.

The proceeding was brought by Steven Pigozzo in the Federal Court against Mineral Resources Ltd, Chris Ellison, Lawfirst Pty Ltd and other respondents. The matter sat in the Fair Work Division and the Employment and Industrial Relations National Practice Area. The judgment record shows that the case had already produced a substantial interlocutory history over several years, including applications filed in 2022, 2023 and 2024, earlier suppression and confidentiality orders, and hearings in February 2024 and December 2024.

By the time this judgment was delivered, the parties had reached a settlement. But settlement did not end the Court’s work. The parties wanted the Court to make a set of consent orders that would finally resolve the interlocutory applications and support the settlement structure. Those proposed orders were not merely administrative. They sought to alter the status of filed documents and evidence in a way that affected public access to the court record.

The orders sought included dismissal of multiple interlocutory applications, striking out parts of the applicant’s affidavits, discharge of some earlier suppression orders, prohibition on disclosure of the statement of claim and an amended statement of claim, removal of various documents from the Court file, and confidentiality restrictions over other documents so that non-parties could not inspect them without leave. WAToday appeared as an interested person, which underlines that public access and open justice were live issues in the proceeding.

This is the commercial story business owners should focus on. The dispute had progressed far enough that sensitive material had already been filed and, in some instances, used in open court. The parties then settled and wanted the Court to help contain or restructure access to that material. The Court therefore had to decide how far it could and should go in giving effect to those agreed outcomes.

The legal issue was not whether the parties were entitled to settle. They plainly were. The real question was whether the Court should make the particular consent orders sought, and if so, to what extent. The catchwords show the Court was dealing with the interaction between several different mechanisms: removal of documents from the file, confidentiality of documents on the file, and suppression or non-publication orders under Pt VAA of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 (Cth).

The judgment record specifically refers to the interaction between rr 6.01, 29.03 and 2.28 of the Federal Court Rules 2011 (Cth) in relation to removal, r 2.32 in relation to inspection and confidentiality, and Pt VAA of the Act in relation to suppression and non-publication. The catchwords also identify the central test in practical terms: whether removal, confidentiality and suppression were necessary to prevent prejudice to the proper administration of justice.

That is an important point for businesses. A settlement agreement may say that the parties will seek confidentiality orders, but the Court still has to apply public law principles. The Court must weigh the public interest in settlement of litigation against the public interest in open justice. It must also consider the status of the documents in question, including whether they were read and relied on in open court, merely filed, or argued about in a contested hearing.

The distinction between those categories matters because the closer material has come to public use in court, the harder it may be to justify later restrictions. This judgment therefore sits at the intersection of litigation strategy, document management and reputational risk.

The orders made on 18 September 2025 show a tailored result rather than a simple yes or no to confidentiality. First, the Court dismissed a series of interlocutory applications filed by different parties between 2022 and 2024, with no order as to costs except as otherwise provided in the orders. That brought a large part of the procedural contest to an end.

Second, the Court upheld objections by the first and second respondents, and by the fourth respondent, to parts of the applicant’s evidence. The identified parts of the affidavits listed in Schedule 1 were struck out. That is significant because it shows the Court was not merely preserving or suppressing material. It was also determining what affidavit content should remain part of the evidentiary record.

Third, the Court discharged some earlier suppression and confidentiality orders. This is an important reminder that interim protective orders made earlier in a case do not necessarily continue unchanged after settlement or after the Court revisits the position.

Fourth, the Court made a suppression order under s 37AF of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 (Cth), on the ground set out in s 37AG(1)(a), prohibiting disclosure of the statement of claim filed on 1 June 2022 and the amended statement of claim lodged on 17 June 2023 and accepted for filing on 19 June 2023 until further order. The order was not absolute. It contained carve-outs allowing disclosure to the Court, the parties and their legal representatives, certain current and former directors and officers of the first respondent and their legal representatives for legal advice purposes, and courts, regulators and other authorities where disclosure was required by law or binding requirement.

Fifth, the Court directed the Western Australian District Registrar to deal with file access in a structured way. One earlier removed document was to be stored electronically as a voided and suppressed document with a notation restricting non-party inspection except by leave of a judge. A redacted version was to be placed on the Court file and treated as the filed document. The Registrar was also directed to remove a list of other documents from the Court file, including an amended statement of claim, a minute of proposed further amended statement of claim, and several affidavits. Electronic records of those documents were to be stored as voided and suppressed documents with notations restricting inspection.

Sixth, the Court ordered that a further group of documents be confidential and not inspectable by non-parties until further order. Those documents included the statement of claim, a minute of proposed second further amended statement of claim, several affidavits, and the applicant’s outline of submissions for the February 2024 interlocutory hearing. Importantly, the Court preserved a mechanism for non-parties to apply for leave to inspect documents under r 2.32(4). That feature shows the Court was restricting access in a controlled and reviewable way, not simply extinguishing it forever.

The judgment record shows that the access issue arose because the parties wanted the Court to deal with a range of filed documents after settlement. Those documents included statements of claim, proposed amended pleadings, affidavits from several witnesses, and written submissions. The catchwords show that the Court paid close attention to how those documents had been used in the litigation process.

Three categories stand out. First, there was affidavit material that had been read and relied on in open court. Second, there were suppressed parts of certain documents that had been the subject of contested hearing in open court but had not been read in open court. Third, there were documents or parts of documents that had not been read or relied on in open court. The Court’s treatment of access and confidentiality had to account for those differences.

For businesses, this is the practical trigger point. Risk does not arise only when a document is filed. It also depends on what happens next. If a document is referred to in open court, relied on in submissions, or becomes part of a contested hearing, the open justice dimension becomes stronger. That can make later suppression or removal more difficult to justify. By contrast, material that has been filed but not publicly deployed may sometimes be easier to protect, depending on the legal basis and the facts.

This is why disciplined drafting matters. Over-pleading, attaching unnecessary annexures, or including personal or commercially sensitive detail that is not essential to the issue in dispute can create a long tail of access problems. Once the material is in the court system, the parties may no longer be able to control it simply by agreement.

Businesses should read this case as a litigation management decision, not as a general privacy ruling. The judgment is about court process, open justice, suppression, confidentiality and access to filed documents. It may involve sensitive information, but the practical lesson is broader than privacy compliance. It is about what happens when sensitive material enters the court record.

If your business is preparing to sue or defend a claim, assume that every pleading, affidavit and annexure may later be scrutinised not only for legal relevance but also for whether it should be publicly accessible. If there is a genuine need to protect information, that should be considered early. Waiting until settlement may be too late to achieve everything the parties want, especially if the material has already been aired in open court.

There is also a settlement drafting lesson. Parties sometimes negotiate on the assumption that the Court will make agreed suppression or confidentiality orders as part of the deal. This case shows that assumption is risky. The Court may make some orders, refuse others, discharge earlier interim orders, or preserve a route for non-parties to seek access. Settlement documents should therefore be drafted with a realistic understanding that court approval is a separate step governed by legal principle.

For in-house teams and business owners, the safest operational approach is to build a filing protocol with external lawyers. Decide who reviews draft pleadings and affidavits, identify categories of information that need special handling, and ask whether each sensitive allegation or document is truly necessary. If confidentiality is sought, make the request targeted and evidence-based. Broad secrecy requests are harder to justify than narrow ones tied to a clear legal basis.

This checklist is especially relevant where the dispute involves employee allegations, board communications, internal investigations, customer information, pricing, trade secrets or other material that could cause commercial or reputational harm if it becomes accessible through the court process. The judgment shows that once those issues are embedded in filed documents, the Court may need to balance your confidentiality concerns against broader public interests.

That does not mean protection is impossible. The orders in this case show the Court can make suppression, confidentiality and file-removal directions in appropriate circumstances. But the protection is structured, conditional and grounded in legal tests. Businesses should therefore treat confidentiality in litigation as a matter requiring planning and evidence, not as a clean-up exercise after the event.

This page explains the decision using the published Federal Court judgment record for Pigozzo v Mineral Resources Ltd (No 3) [2025] FCA 1142. The judgment record clearly supports the procedural story set out here: settlement-linked consent orders, open justice, suppression and confidentiality, removal of documents from the court file, and restrictions on non-party inspection.

The judgment is most useful as a guide to litigation process and court-file access. It should not be read as deciding a broad privacy law question. The practical significance for businesses lies in how the Court handled filed material after settlement and how it balanced settlement interests against open justice.