Where a statutory demand is challenged on the basis of a dispute about the construction of a contract, the court hearing the s 459G application must exercise particular restraint and should not resolve the question of construction unless the argument is 'patently feeble' or the answer is 'as plain as a pikestaff'. Where evidence is capable of supporting competing possibilities, some consistent with the existence of a debt and some inconsistent, the court should find a serious question to be tried rather than accepting as exclusively cogent the possibilities favouring one party. The question whether s 459G proceedings are interlocutory for the purposes of s 75 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW) remains unsettled.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 81 later cases that cite this judgment.
9 of the 81 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.