Re Hewitt, Mea & Anor Ex Parte Hewitt, Mea & Anor v Australian Sunshine Foods Pty Ltd [1994] FCA 1097

IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA ) GENERAL DIVISION ) BANKRUPTCY DISTRICT OF ) THE STATE OF QUEENSLAND )

No. QN 305 of 1994

RE:MEA HEWITT and JANE STEEN-OLSEN

EX PARTE:MEA HEWITT and JANE STEEN-OLSEN

AUSTRALIAN SUNSHINE FOODS PTY. LTD.

Respondent

CORAM: Drummond J PLACE: Brisbane DATE: 15 June, 1994

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

This is an application to adjourn the hearing of the applicants! application filed as long ago as 13 May, 1993 for an order setting aside the bankruptcy notice served on them at the behest of the respondents of these proceedings. The judgment debt, which founds the bankruptcy notice, arose from an order that the applicants pay certain costs of an interlocutory hearing made in the course of a Supreme Court action they themselves had commenced some time ago against the respondent, in effect for damages for breach of the respondent's fiduciary

duty as their agent. That order was made in October 1993. As I have said, the applicants'

application that is now before me and which the applicants seek to adjourn was filed as long ago

as 13 May, 1993.

The application was supported by material prepared by the applicants themselves, although they had solicitors acting for them in the Supreme Court proceedings referred to, and have had solicitors acting for them in these proceedings. They are represented today by counsel and by other solicitors now acting for them. The proposition is that they should be given the adjournment of this application, which has been before the Court for a long time, because they have taken the step of engaging legal representation that they apparently now wish to utilise, only very late in the piece, a week or so ago. There is nothing in the material before me which explains this somewhat extraordinary picture of inactivity by the applicants to justify them