FOR LIMITED DISTRIBUTION "787 © JUDGMENT Noy: p.GdaSoeened Beane | IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA ) | ) 'GENERAL DIVISION ) No. VG 171 of 1985 :. ) ) "NEW SOUTH WALES DISTRICT REGISTRY Between: CARTIGNY PTY. LIMITED And: ' BORDEN AUSTRALIA PTY .LIMITED CORAM: Einfeld J. PLACE: Sydney DATE: 19 August 1987 EX TEMPORE JUDGMENT Part of this notice of motion deals with the alleged inadequacy of the answers by the applicant to the respondent's administered interrogatories. I have already dealt in argument with the matters raised under interrogatories 1 and 2, and counsel for the applicant has indicated that he will comply with and supply the information adumbrated in: my observations and argument. Paragraphs 10A and 10C are referred to by counsel for the respondent as having been inadequately answered. The basis of the argument, as I understand it, is that the applicant has failed to identify the relevant wholesale market or wholesale price for raw material as alleged in its amended statement of claim, especially in paragraph 8 thereof. It is common ground in this case that at the relevant time the respondent monopolised the Australian raw material supply, and that the 'only alternative supply to that supplied by the respondent would have been and was from overseas. The applicant has indicated that the wholesale market upon which its claim is based is the wholesale market represented by the respondent. The applicant also alleges that the price of $8.50 per roll for the clingwrap was to be tested in terms of fairness and the other criteria alleged against the price charged from time to time by the respondent. In those circumstances, and having regard to the detail given in the so- called claims tables which the applicant has supplied in particularisation of its allegations, it seems to me that there is no substance to the assertions made on behalf of the respondent that the answers to the interrogatories 10A and 10C are inadequate. The next objection is taken to interrogatory 11(d) to which the applicant has given an answer and further clarification to the respondent's solicitor in a letter dated 12 August 1987. For the reaasons given in argument, in my view, the answers given thus far are adequate. Objection is also taken to interrogatory 11(i). I find that question not only multiple in content but almost impossible to understand. The rephraseology of it that I put in argument was ad opted by counsel for the respondent, but I must observe that that rephraseology is not what the words actually say in the question. In terms of the rephrasing which was adopted during argument, it seems to me that the matter has now heen adequately dealt with by the applicant in its additional material supplied by the letter of 12 August 1987 to which [I have referred. The final objection taken is to questions 26, 27 and 32 which are all interlocked. The confirmation required by question 26 is supplied in the 12 August letter to which I have referred, but in respect of the balance of that question and the two questions referred to, it seems to me that there is no entitlement to administer interrogatories in those terms. The respondent in its letter to applicant of 3 July sought to argue the appropriateness of this interrogatory and expanded that argument today by referring to some matter raised in the defence. Whilst of course interrogatories may be administered that go to clear and acknowledged issues in the matter, I fail to see, on any basis and with all respect to the advocacy of Mr. Campbell, that this matter can be interrogated about at all. It may be that the respondent will be able to answer some partt of the applicant's claim by the argument advanced, but that does not provide a basis for administering interrogatories. In any event, I am unable to see how the actual questions asked even bear on or would supply relevant material to support the argument which Mr. Campbell suggests will arise in the casse. In those circumstances and for those reasons, I decline to make the order sought in relation to the interrogatories which have been identified. | { 6eitify that thia and tha = f frécadind Frees are q tue anpy of the ' Recsaaa for Judemeat herein ef his Honour 4 f Kir, duative Elnteld LHe "7 Sarge Agaosiate