ICAC Inquiries: Hearings for Legal Teams

What an ICAC Inquiry Involves

The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) investigates corruption under the Independent Commission Against Corruption Act 1988. The investigation is the broader evidence-gathering process. A compulsory examination is a private hearing within that process, while a public inquiry examines evidence publicly, subject to restrictions.

ICAC can use either hearing process or both. A public inquiry is not an automatic stage in every investigation. Its official explanation of public inquiries and compulsory examinations describes the public-interest decision required under sections 30 and 31.

The Commission is an investigative body. An inquiry is not a criminal trial, and a corrupt-conduct finding is not a criminal conviction. Section 74BA restricts findings described as corrupt conduct in a section 74 report to serious corrupt conduct. Section 74B distinguishes those findings from findings of criminal guilt. The ICAC Act sets those boundaries.

This NSW framework belongs to the NSW Commission. Integrity bodies in other states operate under their own legislation. A court-ordered public examination in a corporate or bankruptcy matter is also a different process.

Coordinate the Institution’s Response

Appoint a legal contact and a records coordinator who can account for each request from receipt to delivery. Record the instrument, scope, due date, responsible custodian and production status in one request register. Preserve the original request and any written clarification or extension beside its entry.

Work through the response in this order:

1. Identify custodians and systems holding relevant records, including former staff accounts and archived procurement files.
2. Preserve those records and suspend routine disposal that would affect them. Record the preservation steps and the person responsible.
3. Allocate searches against each request item. Keep the search locations and results, including searches returning nothing.
4. Have the legal contact resolve questions about scope or restricted material through the Commission contact before the response deadline.
5. Record what was delivered and retain its index, covering correspondence and delivery receipt.

The institution’s lawyer coordinates the institution’s response. An employee’s personal position can require separate advice, particularly where their account conflicts with the institution’s evidence. Record who each lawyer represents before circulating witness material. ICAC’s standard directions prefer separate, independent representation and govern applications for shared representation.

If the matter began with an employer’s internal process, retain its misconduct-investigation handover as a distinct part of the record. Keep the Commission’s later requests identifiable in their own register.

Produce a Source-Linked Financial Record

Build a financial index that connects each payment to the procurement decision and its original bank-statement entry. A transaction schedule helps the Commission locate evidence, but the schedule alone does not answer a request for the underlying records.

For each payment, retain the tender or approval reference, invoice number, ledger entry and statement filename with its page reference. Add the payment amount and recorded recipient. Preserve the original transaction description even where the analyst adds a clearer category.

A practical production register can use the following fields.

Request item	Records located	Source connection	Status and next action
Contract approval	Approval record and delegation	Contract reference to approving officer	Located; legal review before production
Supplier payment	Invoice, ledger entry and statement	Invoice reference to statement filename and page	Ready in indexed production
Missing statement period	Statements on either side of the gap	Account identifier and missing period	Records coordinator to obtain missing pages
Correction	Original schedule and revised schedule	Same payment ID in both versions	Explain correction in covering correspondence

Reconcile the proposed production against every request item before delivery. Distinguish a missing record from one held back for legal review. Record the reason and the next action without silently dropping either from the index. Keep redacted versions linked to their preserved originals and record the basis for each redaction.

For the analytical side of procurement fraud work, separate the payment itself from the inference about its purpose. A bank debit establishes movement from an account. The approval file and other evidence explain who authorised it and why.

FinTrace saves legal teams and forensic accountants hours of statement conversion and review. It turns supplied PDFs into a searchable Excel ledger and a written findings report, with suspicious transactions clearly flagged. Each finding cites its source filename and page, keeping the supporting statement at hand. FinTrace delivers this statement-analysis work at a fraction of the cost of manual review of the same material.

Prepare for the Public Hearing Stage

Use the directions actually governing the ICAC hearing to build the institution’s documentary worklist. Keep the inquiry’s scope, directions and later variations together. Record who can access each restricted document and the permitted purpose of that access.

Under the standard directions, Counsel Assisting controls documentary tenders subject to the presiding Commissioner. A document intended for cross-examination must reach Counsel Assisting before that cross-examination starts. Follow the stated procedure for asking to place a document before the inquiry.

Add hearing references to the financial index as they become available. Keep an exhibit number distinct from the institution’s production identifier. Record whether a document was tendered, marked for identification or supplied without becoming an exhibit. The brief-of-evidence guide explains how to organise source records and an exhibit index.

For each disputed payment, the lawyer and analyst can then follow the same route through the file. Start with the chronology entry, open the original statement page and compare its amount with the invoice and approval record. Locate the relevant transcript passage and exhibit reference. Record any inconsistency in a correction log with its supporting source.

A public hearing does not make every document freely shareable. Apply section 112 directions and access conditions to each item. Before using AI-assisted analysis in hearing material, apply the directions’ specific AI provisions. Suppressed information must not enter a generative AI system, and AI-generated evidence and expert reports have separate restrictions. Resolve the intended use before instructing a provider.

A witness attending a private hearing needs separate compulsory-examination preparation. Institutional production work does not replace that individual advice.

Respond to Findings and Recommendations

Treat proposed adverse findings as matters for response before the Commission decides its final findings. Counsel Assisting’s submissions identify findings contended for on the evidence. The Commission considers responsive submissions before preparing its report, as the guide for witnesses and their lawyers explains.

The public inquiry procedural guidelines address disclosure of adverse material and opportunities to respond. They also provide for notice and submissions when further potential adverse findings emerge while the report is being drafted.

Create one response entry for each disputed proposition. Identify the proposed finding, the source relied on, the disputed fact and the institution’s evidence answering it. Assign a lawyer to settle the response and a custodian to supply any missing record. Keep the submission timetable and applicable publication restrictions beside the response entries.

Final findings and recommendations require a different register. Record what the report actually finds, the recommendation requiring action, its institutional owner and the evidence needed to demonstrate completion. Avoid describing a submission as the Commission’s conclusion.

Following a public inquiry, ICAC must report to Parliament. Reports can recommend changes to agency systems, and ICAC monitors implementation of corruption-prevention recommendations. Its investigation-report guidance also distinguishes subsequent prosecution-brief work involving the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Check the Inquiry File Before Handover

Check that every financial schedule leads back to an original source and that the file explains its own production and hearing history. The next lawyer must be able to identify outstanding work without reconstructing the matter from email.

Consider a fictional allegation that a council officer favoured a maintenance supplier. The indexed file contains an approval record, two invoices and bank debits of $18,000 and $7,000. A missing approval attachment affects the second payment.

The handover records both payments without treating both as corrupt. It connects the $18,000 debit to its statement page and the approval evidence. The $7,000 entry carries the same source detail, plus an outstanding request for the missing attachment. Hearing references sit beside each entry only when the material has been used at the hearing.

Before closing the handover, complete these checks:

• Open each cited statement page and reconcile the schedule’s amounts with the source.
• Match each production to its request, index and receipt.
• Confirm exhibit and transcript references against the hearing record.
• Carry restrictions through to the handover copy and its access permissions.
• List unanswered requests, missing records and corrections with an owner and next action.
• Separate proposed findings, final findings and implementation tasks.

Send the incoming legal team the current index and open-action register with the controlled source file. That gives them the evidence behind each payment and a clear account of what still needs an answer.