A creditor's knowledge that a debt is genuinely disputed does not, without more, make it an abuse of process to serve a statutory demand and pursue winding up proceedings under Pt 5.4 of the Corporations Act. The statutory scheme is designed to test the genuineness of disputes, and a debtor who fails to apply within time under s 459G cannot invoke the court's inherent jurisdiction to restrain winding up proceedings unless it can establish by very cogent evidence that the creditor's predominant purpose is collateral to debt collection or winding up. The reasoning in Intergraph (1996) 19 ACSR 523 that knowledge of a disputed debt gives rise to an inference of improper purpose was disapproved.
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