A company seeking to set aside a statutory demand need not formally or comprehensively evidence the basis of its dispute or offsetting claim; something between mere assertion and the proof necessary in a court of law may suffice. The dispute or offsetting claim must have sufficient objective existence and prima facie plausibility to distinguish it from a merely spurious claim, and sufficient factual particularity to exclude the merely fanciful or futile. A written agreement that assumes a prior oral agreement may not exhaustively set out the terms of the parties' arrangement, and it is arguable that oral terms exist beyond those in the written document.
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