The Court awarded indemnity costs to ANZ pursuant to contractual provisions in the loan agreement and mortgage, applying Chen v Kevin McNamara & Son Pty Ltd (No 2), but exercised its residual discretion to order standard basis costs for a summary judgment application on which ANZ was only partially successful due to deficiencies in its own evidence. The Court refused a recusal application based on the trial judge's prior involvement in an unrelated interlocutory hearing involving the defendant's husband, finding no reasonable apprehension of bias where the husband had not appeared at that hearing and there were no adversarial exchanges. The Court also addressed its non-disclosure of 32 ANZ shares (0.000001% of shares on issue), holding this was an insignificant interest insufficient to give rise to apprehended bias under Ebner v Official Trustee in Bankruptcy.
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