u42-| 14% IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA GENERAL DIVISION BANKRUPTCY DISTRICT OF THE STATE OF VICTORIA NO. P621 OF 1984 RE: HUBERTUS GERAERTS ... a Debtor EX PARTE: SLOUGH ESTATES (MELBOURNE) PTY. LIMITED a Creditor CORAM: Jenkinson J. PLACE: Melbourne DATE: 13 December, 1984 REASONS FOR JUDGMENT Hearing of a bankruptcy petition. The petitioner is a company incorporated under Victorian law. On 27 May 1983 its name was changed from Slough Estates (Melbourne) Pty. Ltd. to Slough Estates Pty. Ltd.. In the former name it commenced, on 27 January 1984, an action against the debtor in the Supreme Court of Victoria and procured, on 17 February 1984, the entry of a default judgment. The judgment is in terms unintelligible, confusing as it does the verbiage of a judgment and of an order that judgment be entered : "It Is This Day Adjudged that the plaintiff enter judgment-against: him in the... sum of §$79,389.6B and $340 costs." But it may, I think, be taken for a judgment that the plaintiff recover against the defendant $79,389.68 and $340 costs. In the same name application was made for the issue of a bankruptcy notice in relation to that judgment. 2. The bankruptcy notice was issued accordingly. In the same name the bankruptcy petition was presented on 29 June 1984, founded upon an act of bankruptcy alleged to have been committed by the debtor's failing to comply with the requirements of the bankruptcy notice. But the petition was under the seal of the company in its then correct name. Opposite the seal, and above the signatures of a director and the secretary, were typed the words "The Common Seal of Slough Estates Pty. Limited, formerly known as Slough Estates (Melbourne) Pty. Limited, was hereunto affixed in the presence of". The petition should not have been presented on behalf of the company under its former name, nor entitled in that name. I will order that the title and contents of the petition be amended by substituting for the words "Slough Estates (Melbourne) Pty. Limited" wherever occurring therein except in the phrase "formerly known as Slough Estates (Melbourne) Pty. Limited" therein the words "Slough Estates Pty. Ltd." The debtor neither responded to service upon him of the bankruptcy notice nor appeared on the hearing of the petition. The bankruptcy notice complied with the requirements of 5.41(2)(a)(i) of the Bankruptcy Act 1966 : it required the debtor to pay the judgment debt "in accordance with the judgment", for the same misnomer marred both judgment and bankruptcy notice. (Cf. In re Howes. Ex parte Hughes £18923 2 9.B. 628.) The transactions constituting the cause of action upon which the judgment was obtained occurred during a period before the 3. expiration of which the petitioner's change of name occurred, but the first intimation to the debtor of that change was, the evidence persuades me, that. which was.contained in the. petition. Since then the debtor. has been served. with copy affidavits . filed in this proceeding which disclose the misnomers and the narrative I have summarised. In all those circumstances I cannot suppose that the debtor could have been misled or confused by the misdescription of the judgment creditor in the bankruptcy notice. (Cf. Re Gray; Ex parte Person to Person Financial Services Pty. Ltd. (1980) 48 F.L.R. 379.) I order that the title and contents of the petition be amended by substituting for the words "Slough Estates (Melbourne) Pty. Limited wherever occurring therein except in the phrase "formerly known as Slough Estates (Melbourne) Pty. Limited" . therein the words "Slough Estates Pty. Ltd".