Ethics Ruling Number
R5040
Area of Law
Property
Category
Conflict of Interest
Ethics Ruling Date
21/08/2025
Ethics Pub Date
18/09/2025
Ethics Background
A Law Practice acted for a statutory corporation in a peer review process relating to land acquisition and land access. In doing so, the Law Practice reviewed a suite of documents that will be provided to landholders entering into land access or acquisition agreements. The Law Practice seeks guidance as to whether it faces a conflict of interest in acting for landholders in the land access process. The statutory corporation seeks to transfer its involvement in the matter to other parties.
Ruling
In the opinion of the Ethics Committee and on the information presented: 1. Based on both confidential information and a duty of loyalty the Law Practice has a conflict of interest and should not act for landholders in the land access process unless the Law Practice obtains the informed consent of the statutory corporation to do so. 2. If the statutory corporation consents to the Law Practice acting for landholders then the Law Practice should disclose to a landholder that it has previously acted for the statutory corporation in relation to this matter before acting for the landholder as failing to do so may be subversive to the appearance of propriety and therefore detrimental to the public confidence in the legal system.

Law Institute of Victoria
Ethics Committee of Law Institute of Victoria Ltd
Legal Ethics Manager
Phone: 03 9607 9336
Email: ethics@liv.asn.au

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