MARGARITIS and ORS v AGC (ADVANCES) LTD and ANOR [1991] NSWCA 189

MARGARITIS and ORS v AGC (ADVANCES) LTD and ANOR

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL

MAHONEY, PRIESTLEY and CLARKE JJA 23 September 1991

[1991] NSWCA 189

Mahoney JA This case comes before the Court initially upon an application described as an application that the time for the instituting of an appeal from the orders made by consent by Rogers CJ in Comm Div on 15 August 1988 be extended. The purpose of the extension is to allow procedures to be brought, as it has emerged, by way of application for leave to appeal, so as to have set aside the judgment given by Rogers CJ in Comm Div on 15 August 1988.

It is not necessary for me to detail all of the bases on which the matter has been raised by the claimants. It is sufficient to say that a judgment was given by Rogers CJ in Comm Div on 15 August 1988, by consent, in a proceeding in which Westpac Banking Corporation and AGC (Advances) Ltd, the second and first opponents in the present proceeding, claimed to be entitled to sums from the three claimants upon a foreign currency borrowing.

The substance of the matter is that the claimants now say that it has only recently, within the matter of the past few weeks, come to their knowledge that there were documents in the possession of the opponents and, in particular, the second opponent which, had they known of them, would have influenced them not to consent to the judgments in question or, at least - I put one of the other variations of the position - may well have influenced them not to consent to that judgment.

It is proposed to contest this matter by means of a procedure by way of appeal. The documents in question, that is the detail of them, are not presently known to the claimants. Their case is essentially that they have come to know of them as a result of the judgment given by Foster J in a proceeding in the Federal Court of Australia. The opponents have refused to make the documents available to the claimants, but the claimants suggest that they know sufficient of them to provide at least prima facie support for the present application.