Adami and Adami

[2018] FCCA 2619

FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT OF AUSTRALIA

ADAMI & ADAMI [2018] FCCA 2619

Catchwords:
FAMILY LAW – Property – complex matter – where the size of the pool is undetermined – matter transferred to Family Court of Australia.

Legislation:

Family Law Act 1975 (Cth)

Applicant: MS ADAMI

Respondent: MR ADAMI

File Number: DNC 521 of 2017

Judgment of: Judge Young

Hearing date: 27 August 2018

Date of Last Submission: 27 August 2018

Delivered at: Darwin

Delivered on: 27 August 2018

REPRESENTATION

Counsel for the Applicant: Ms Farmer

Solicitors for the Applicant: Withnalls Lawyers

Counsel for the Respondent: Mr Barry

Solicitors for the Respondent: Darwin Family Law

ORDERS

1. That within 14 days of the date of this order the husband file and serve a response to the application in a case in relation to the wife’s application for injunctive orders about proceeds of sale for the Motor Vehicle 1.

2. That these proceedings be transferred to the Family Court of Australia at Darwin to be listed on a date to be fixed by that Court.

IT IS NOTED that publication of this judgment under the pseudonym Adami & Adami is approved pursuant to s.121(9)(g) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).

FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT
OF AUSTRALIA
AT DARWIN

DNC 521 of 2017

MS ADAMI

Applicant

And

MR ADAMI

Respondent

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

Ex-Tempore

1. These reasons for judgment were delivered orally. They have been corrected from the transcript. Grammatical errors have been corrected and an attempt has been made to render the orally delivered reasons amenable to being read.

2. This is a property matter where the wife estimates that the pool is worth some $2.5 million.  She said that, according to the husband’s case, the pool is $93,000, though the husband’s counsel certainly did not accept that.  I was told that there are a number of properties in dispute, a number of other disputes about the forgiveness or otherwise of a very large debt, said to be about $600,000, and whether that’s genuine, and other issues relating to valuation and non-disclosure.

3. The matter came on before me where both parties sought for it to be transferred to the Family Court on the basis of the complexity of the matter. The parties could not agree on whether it was complex or not but, having looked at the affidavit material, I think there is likely to be a prolonged investigation into the nature of the property pool, what is to be included, what is not to be included, and I suspect that the matter may easily take up more than four days in this list.  So while there is perhaps some degree of complexity, it also appears that the matter may be reasonably lengthy, although the parties really only identified five witnesses.

4. The other thing is that the wife seeks an injunction to prevent the husband dissipating the proceeds of sale of a motor car but he has not filed any affidavit material to allow me to make a judgment about that.  I think in all the circumstances the appropriate thing is to transfer the matter to the Family Court.  It seems to me that if there is real urgency about the matter, as I cannot deal with it today as I am hearing a duty list,  that the wife, after seeking an undertaking that the money will not be dissipated pending a listing before the Family Court, can renew that application there. 

5. I will transfer it to the Family Court.

I certify that the preceding five (5) paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for judgment of Judge Young

Date: 14 September 2018