RBA and Chatham House Rule

• Published on
• 15 Nov 2024, 02:30 PM

By Sophia Rodrigues

(Sydney, November 15, 2024) – At a recent Parliamentary testimony, the Reserve Bank of Australia was probed further on the banks it had reprimanded for “leaking to outsiders discussions at private meetings.”

The question was in response to reports in the past year that the RBA had imposed 12-month sanctions on three organisations. Governor Michele Bullock confirmed the suspension was the result of a breach of the Chatham House Rule.

The Chatham House Rule states: “When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.”

The guiding principle is that information can be shared but the identity of the person saying it should never be revealed.

The question is whether it is ok to reveal the identity of the speaker without disclosing what was discussed.

In that regard, Assistant Governor Christopher Kent made this comment during the testimony:

“They may not have even said something about what we said, although they may have. They may have just said, “I went to a lunch which so-and-so was at” -- so that is automatically a breach.”

While it might not be a strict breach of the Chatham House Rule, every organiser needs to check with the “speaker” whether it is ok for the participants to reveal they attended a meeting with the speaker.

The speaker will very likely say it would still be a breach because if someone says they heard X at this event, and separately they hear the speaker was there, they might attribute the comments to the person implicitly.

It is, therefore, imperative the organiser communicates clearly to participants in advance what would constitute a breach to ensure an inadvertent breach doesn’t occur. Else there will be more instances of sanctions.

--Contact: Sophia@centralbankintel.com