TORT, SETTLEMENTS AND GOVERNMENT: A PRELIMINARY INQUIRY.

This article is part of a wider project to assess the effect of tort liability, or other settlements, on government. The hypothesis of this project is that the special nature of the government must be taken into account when examining the effect that liability or settlements might have on government, and that a particularly important part of such liability or of settlements is the information that they can generate. As the research project developed it became clear that a necessary first step in making such an evaluation was to determine how the government goes about settling claims and accounting for tort or ex gratia settlements. This article reviews and explains the basic way in which the New Zealand government accounts for liabilities and settlements and then shows how that framework was employed through a number of case studies. The author hopes that other scholars will use the material gathered as a starting point for more examination of the relationship between private law, traditional public law and the way that Government accounts for its activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]