By Robert Glade-Wright -
Key decisions
- Trustee of the Bankrupt Estate of Hicks & Hicks and Anor [2018] FamCAFC 37
- Snipper & James and Anor [2018] FamCA 7
- Heyman & Heyman & Anor [2018] FCCA 129
- Tassinari & Pesalaccio & Ors [2018] FamCA 12
Property – parties suppressed evidence of husband’s $606,000 debt in their application for consent orders
In Trustee of the Bankrupt Estate of Hicks & Hicks and Anor [2018] FamCAFC 37 (26 February 2018) a majority of the Full Court (Strickland and Murphy JJ) allowed an appeal by the trustee in bankruptcy against Stevenson J’s dismissal of its s 79A application. Austin J dissented. The trustee argued at trial that consent orders should be set aside as the parties had entered into a scheme to defeat a creditor by applying for those orders without divulging that ‘Mr S’ was suing the husband for $606,000 (judgment was entered against him a week after the orders were made) or notifying Mr S of the proposed orders.
The trial was bifurcated, the Court only hearing and determining the s 79A issue. At first instance, the wife conceded that there was a miscarriage of justice but persuaded Stevenson J not to exercise discretion to set aside the order, her Honour finding that the wife had no involvement in the husband’s debt to Mr S; that the debt was not incurred for a matrimonial objective; and that the trustee would find itself in no better position if the order were set aside.
