The Court held that all three defendants were jointly and severally liable under a partly oral, partly written loan agreement formed across multiple conversations, finding that post-contractual conduct (partial repayments, WeChat messages, and bank transaction descriptions) supported the existence of the contract and its terms including an agreed interest rate of 5.5% per annum. The Court set aside prior orders permitting witnesses in the PRC to give evidence by AVL, applying the Sunnya line of authority that taking such evidence without PRC consent contravenes Chinese law and impinges on PRC sovereignty, and subsequently excluded the affidavit evidence of those witnesses on the basis that the statutory preconditions for admission under ss 63 and 64 of the Evidence Act were not satisfied. The proper law of the contract was held to be Australian law, given the loan was advanced for the purchase of Australian real property, rendering the Chinese law expert evidence on interest ultimately unnecessary to the outcome.
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