Lawsuits

An agreement about what? If they paid her to keep quiet, presumably the settlement included specific clauses to the effect that she couldn't discuss the case. Discussing the case, especially with someone the board will likely find out she discussed the case with, can get her sued and the money forced to be returned.

Agreement about what? The case got settled. Further, the new CEO would have nothing to do with the settlement, but would be extensively involved in the damage control aspect.

You've got a big plausibility problem here. When this happens in the real world (and it does), people start going "WTF!" But this one is going to be an even bigger WTF moment. Not only do we have the victim talking, we have a CEO talking about this. The CEO would know about this settlement (he would have to because of the expenses showing up against income in the previous year) and would know he can't talk about it. So you now have two idiots.

Second problem is you describe this as a "rape." For the Board to pay off this woman to not go to the police would be potentially compounding a felony.

However, you say she is "suing" the company. That implies a lawsuit. Lawsuits are public documents. The press is very good at finding out about these situations. If that is the case, the victim would be prohibited from making public statements about the case, but would probably not be forbidden from talking about the case in private. After all, the public already knows about this.

And even if the complaint is private and not filed in court, if the stock of the company is publicly traded, the company must file a statement about the lawsuit as it will be a cost against income. State law on sexual harassment might also require that the company file with the appropriate state agency.

The more this has to be reported, the less strict will be the no-chat clause. If it isn't secret, the no-chat clause isn't going to be too strict.

As presented, and I realize there's a whole lot you didn't include in your information, I'm having major plausibility issues. These situations are very complex and by the time you got to this question (the answer for which is readily available), you'd know the answer.

And I just noticed you're in Australia. Cornflake and I are in the US and gave you the US answer. Australian corporate law and sexual harassment law is probably significantly different.

Jim Clark-Dawe

A couple of additional considerations (some elaborations on the points above), also from the U.S.

• Lawsuits are generally filed publicly. You can sometimes file documents under seal, but if she's the one suing she is putting her situation in the public domain, because she wants money, and courts would typically not allow those to be private. So, if she has taken the step to initiate the lawsuit, her name, the Company and CEO's names, and the general facts supporting her claim are going to all be public at that point.
• So, if she's filed her lawsuit, you'll want to consider what the prohibition against speaking about it would be, given that she's already put the basis of her claim in the public. If she hasn't filed a lawsuit, but for instance, has hired an attorney to contact them before she files a lawsuit, nothing would be public yet, and they would have a better basis for limiting what can be discussed.
• Without knowing the reason for her wanting to speak to the new CEO, as the others have said, this seems strange, and definitely not standard. Assuming you have a good reason to have her want to speak to him, the general rule is that if she is represented by an attorney, the Company would not be able to speak to her directly regarding her legal claim, they would have to speak to her lawyer. If it's mid-case, they would likely contact her attorney for permission to speak with her or confirmation that she is no longer represented. However, if the representation has ended (she might have a letter from her attorney wrapping up the case), which could be true if she reached a settlement, then they could speak to her without running afoul. Now, it is possible the CEO wouldn't know that he couldn't speak to her, but I would expect a CEO of a major company to speak to his legal team before speaking to someone who had filed a claim against a company.

Not sure if that answers your question.....

The first step in going after an employer in any kind of discrimination or sexual harassment case isn't suing them. It's having your lawyer send them a letter (sometimes called a claim letter) setting forth what happened and saying something to the effect that you, the employee, are potentially willing to consider nonjudicial resolution of the matter (in other words, settling the case without any lawsuit being filed--and thus, without the matter being made public).

And it absolutely does not need to be rape in order for her to have a claim. I know a woman who got a pretty significant settlement on her sexual harassment claim for an affair she had with her boss; she had an affair, she broke it off, he kept pressuring her to resume it and she lawyered up.

BTW if she's keeping the child then you should think about the father's liability for child support. That's on the father, not the company. And if she's planning on placing the child for adoption, come back here and ask more questions because her ability to do that may depend on his willingness to let her place it for adoption (both bio-parents have to sign off, but there are state laws that may enable her to place it without his consent--I've heard of women going to Utah to give birth because the law there is particularly favorable).

IANAL, but

if woman wants to speak to new CEO for whatever reason about the case, can she do this with or without lawyers present? I think yes.

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Possibly she could, but why would the CEO want to? She's sued/made a claim against the company before, maybe she's trying again (I can't think of anything she'd want to 'discuss' that wouldn't end up being financial)- in those circumstances, you'd think the CEO would want a witness to what went down.
I'm sure there were some on the board who figured the 'harassment' was a match-up between a harasser and a gold-digger.

And if new CEO and woman come to agreement, can they do that in a casual setting?

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The first image that comes to mind is 'over drinks, in a nice secluded bar'. This sounds both tacky and foolish. What idiot of a CEO would do that? The CEO's hands are clean, the previous CEO was the harassing dog, I would think his replacement would be scrupulous about behaviour. One harasser is a sorry accident, hiring two would start to look like something's up with the corporate culture.

I have to ask: my first reading of your OP was that this was going to turn into some kind of romance between her and 2nd CEO. Then, as I'm reading the responses, and rereading your post, I noticed that at no point did you indicate whether the new CEO is male or female. First one was, because of the pregnancy. So, is this just a quirk of your style, or were you going for ambiguity?

I also think it's important to consider the difference between a sexual harassment lawsuit and a rape case. There are very different burdens of proof in each of those scenarios. Since the woman is pregnant, the former CEO can't exactly deny that something happened between them. I'm wondering why the police weren't involved from the very beginning?

I'm a corporate litigator and can answer your first question. Note that the settlement would definitely have included a confidentiality clause, but that clause would not apply between the parties, in other words, the woman and the company, and legally for these purposes the new CEO is the company. As a result she and the new CEO would be allowed to discuss the settlement between them without attorneys present. A smart CEO with good instincts would not do so without at least first consulting the company's attorney, and then would be advised not to have the conversation. Some CEOs might take the risk of speaking with her without first consulting a lawyer, and a few might even decide to have the conversation despite the legal advice not to do so. It all depends on personalities and facts that would influence the CEOs judgment. As for your second questions, there aren't enough facts to respond. Do you mean a new, different agreement on the same issues? Or a new agreement about something entirely different?

Another commercial litigator here. One thing to keep in mind is that--putting aside some of plausibility-related details, settlements in this kind of case are without meaningful exception global and total. That is, the settlement encompasses every claim the plaintiff (in this case the woman) had or could have had, or asserted or could have asserted, whether she even knew about it or not. In other words, every possible dispute, real or hypothetical, arising from the facts occurring from the beginning of time all the way to the date of the settlement would be resolved by the settlement.

That being the case, there are very few topics for the woman could plausibly need to talk to the new CEO about. I can only think of two: (1) non-payment of a settlement amount; or (2) a breach of a confidentiality clause by the company.

That being said, the devil's in the details. I and the other lawyers here can, with some creativity, probably construct you a scenario that would be likely to lead to them talking about whatever it is you want them to be talking about.