By Dan Star QC -
Key decisions
- Gold Coast Marine Aquaculture Pty Ltd v HTC Trading Pty Ltd [2019] FCA 1995
- Australian Securities and Investment Commission v Dover Financial Advisers Pty Ltd [2019] FCA 1932
- Autosports Castle Hill Pty Ltd v Altitude Brighton Pty Ltd [2019] FCA 2065
- Meneses v Directed Electronics OE Pty Ltd [2019] FCAFC 190
Practice and procedure
Requirements in preliminary discovery application
In Gold Coast Marine Aquaculture Pty Ltd v HTC Trading Pty Ltd [2019] FCA 1995
(27 November 2019) the Court granted the applicant’s application for preliminary discovery pursuant to rule 7.23 of the Federal Court Rules 2011, which concerns discovery from a prospective respondent, against the respondent and a commonwealth department. There are three elements to rule 7.23, namely:
- a reasonable belief that it may have right to obtain relief from the prospective respondent (7.23(1)(a));
- after making reasonable inquiries, it does not have sufficient information to decide whether to start a proceeding (7.23(1)(b)); and
- a belief that the prospective respondent has relevant documents that would assist (7.23(1)(c)).
