The plaintiff was granted an ex parte search order against the defendant under UCPR r 25.20, permitting search and seizure of physical and digital evidence at the defendant's registered business and residential address. The court held that evidence of systematically billing 17–19.5 hours per day under a cost-plus construction contract, combined with publicly available records of concurrent exercise and overlapping billing on other projects, established a strong prima facie case of fraud, misleading and deceptive conduct under s 18 of the ACL, and accessorial liability under both limbs of Barnes v Addy (1874) LR 9 Ch App 244. Applying Patterson v BTR Engineering (Aust) Ltd (1989) 18 NSWLR 319, the court inferred a real possibility of evidence destruction from the same evidence of serious dishonesty that founded the prima facie case, particularly where the defendant had already unilaterally removed the plaintiff's access to the construction documentation management system when questioned about hours charged. The court emphasised that the elements of r 25.20 are factors in a discretionary balancing exercise rather than rigid essential proofs, following GEMI 169 Pty Ltd v Suria Global (L) Pty Ltd [2022] NSWSC 857.
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