The Court refused interpleader relief sought by two companies in a family business dispute over loan accounts, holding that the plaintiffs failed to satisfy the requirements of Order 12 of the Supreme Court (General Civil Procedure) Rules 2025 (Vic) on two grounds. First, while the plaintiffs had an expectation of being sued by one set of claimants (Alan Barker), there was no objective evidence that the rival claimants (entities controlled by Daryl and Wayne Barker) were expected to sue the plaintiffs, as those claimants had never demanded payment or threatened proceedings against the companies. Second, and dispositively, the plaintiffs had not maintained strict neutrality: two of the plaintiffs' directors were the controlling minds of one set of competing claimants, the plaintiffs had adopted those claimants' position in correspondence opposing statutory demands, and the plaintiffs had voluntarily placed themselves in their current position by failing to amend financial accounts despite having formed the view that the loans had been assigned — conduct amounting to collusion in the interpleader sense of 'playing the same game' as one party, though without moral wrongdoing.
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