A casual WhatsApp chat is not automatically off-limits in discovery, even when a party calls it settlement talk. Insurers fighting over documents have a fresh reminder of that.
On June 17, 2026, the Federal Court of Australia ordered White Oak to hand two 2020 WhatsApp message chains to Insurance Australia Limited (IAL), rejecting White Oak's argument that they were irrelevant and legally protected.
The dispute sits inside the sprawling Greensill litigation. White Oak is suing IAL over money it says is payable under a trade credit insurance policy - cover that protects a business when its customers fail to pay. White Oak invested in finance programs run by Greensill Capital (UK) Ltd and says it bought 29 accounts receivable for USD142,707,342.25 on the understanding they were insured. When the customers didn't pay, it claimed under the policy.
IAL went after fifteen documents: fourteen WhatsApp chains and a draft term sheet. Most of the chains were between White Oak executives and the head of the Gupta Family Group Alliance, the group behind Liberty Commodities Limited (LCL). White Oak had flagged the documents as relevant during discovery but refused to produce them, citing "without prejudice privilege" - the rule that keeps genuine settlement talks out of evidence.
The court sorted the documents into two groups.
The two that counted dated from August 2020, before White Oak invested. White Oak said they involved a different, earlier dispute with LCL and had been disclosed by mistake. The court was not persuaded they were irrelevant, finding them likely to bear on what White Oak knew about LCL's financing, whether it relied on the insurance, whether it made reasonable inquiries, and questions of proportionate liability - all live because IAL has pleaded that White Oak did not make reasonable inquiries.
On privilege, the judge read the messages closely. They pointed only to a "general approach which the parties might take to their dispute," he found, but were not negotiations, held no admission or concession, and showed "no observable element of compromise." Because they were not settlement negotiations of a kind that attracts privilege, the claim failed. White Oak was ordered to produce both by June 19, 2026.
The remaining twelve chains and the draft term sheet, all from after the central dispute broke out in March 2021, went the other way. The court found them irrelevant to any issue, so it never reached the privilege question. That part of IAL's application was dismissed.
For insurers, the policy wording is the part worth watching. White Oak received USD41.5 million from LCL under a January 2024 settlement. The policy defines "Loss" as an amount net of sums "actually paid by the Customer or on its behalf in respect of such Asset." White Oak accepts that payment cuts its loss on one category of debt but disputes whether it touches its loss on the receivables sold to Greensill - a distinction that could swing the final figure.
The case also probes insurer liability for authorised representatives. White Oak sues BCC Trade Credit Pty Ltd and its former head of trade credit, and argues IAL and Tokio Marine answer for their conduct as financial services licensees under Part 7.6 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth).
This was a ruling on document inspection, not the merits. The court made no findings on whether the policy responds, what White Oak is owed, or on IAL's pleaded claims about White Oak's due diligence. The substantive case goes on.
