Wilson Security has settled out of court with a refugee who alleges she was raped while being held in detention on Nauru.

The company was contracted by the Australian government to manage and operate security at the Manus Island and Nauru regional processing centres, where asylum seekers who arrived in Australia by boat were sent under the government’s controversial offshore processing regime.

The case, brought on behalf of the now 32-year-old woman represented by Maurice Blackburn, was scheduled to begin in the Victorian supreme court on Monday but the parties reached a settlement before it started.

Details of the settlement – including whether it involves any admissions of fault – are unknown. A spokeswoman for Wilson Security said the case was dismissed with no costs order.

The woman alleged she was raped by a security guard in 2014 and was sexually harassed on other occasions, causing ongoing trauma and physiological harm.

The statement of claim – a redacted form of which Guardian Australia has seen – claimed that Wilson Security knew or ought to have known that its employees “engaged in inappropriate sexual behaviour and/or sexual misconduct in the course of their duties [or] whilst they were permitted to be at the [detention centre]”, or that they permitted other inappropriate sexual behaviour and/or misconduct to go unreported or unpunished.

It said Wilson knew some time before 5 June 2014 that guards were trading items with detainees in return for sexual favours, and that a subsequent investigation would have given them even further knowledge of the practice.

But the following month, according to the statement of claim, the young woman – who was then an asylum seeker – was raped at night in the detention centre women’s sleeping area by a man who was an “employee, servant or agent” of Wilson Security.

It was alleged Wilson Security allowed male officers to enter the women’s sleeping area alone, and allowed the centre to be an unsafe place for female detainees.

Wilson Security ended its contract with the Australian government in 2016, saying it was “not in line with Wilson Security’s long-term strategic priorities”.

That year Guardian Australia reported the Nauru Files, a cache of thousands of leaked incident reports from the detention centre which included allegations of Wilson employees physically and sexually assaulting asylum seekers and refugees – allegedly including women and children.

The reports also revealed that Wilson guards pressured other workers on the island to downgrade incident reports, even when obviously critical, and that company officials failed to fully reveal to the Senate the number of assaults on children inside the Nauru detention centre.

Wilson Security said the company had been defending the claim by the woman since 2017.

“Wilson Security, while sympathetic to the incident the plaintiff described, has been unable to substantiate the allegations, no perpetrator has to date been identified and Wilson is adamant none of its employees were involved,” the spokeswoman said.

“Wilson Security does not tolerate any misconduct by its staff, whether on Nauru or otherwise. Any criminal behaviour if substantiated, particularly of the kind alleged by the plaintiff, would have resulted in immediate dismissal and referral to the relevant authorities.”

• This story was amended on 26 November 2019 to add a response from Wilson Security.