Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Hughes

[2004] FCA 542

FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Australian Competition & Consumer Commission v Hughes
[2004] FCA 542

AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION AND CONSUMER COMMISSION v RICHARD DAVID HUGHES T/AS CROWDED PLANET ALSO KNOWN AS DAVID HUGHES DAVID R HUGHES DAVID ‘ZERO’ HUGHES RICHARD D HUGHES DAVID Z HUGHES DAVID ZPG HUGHES DAVID Z MR ZERO POPULATION GROWTH AND DAVID ZERO POPULATION GROWTH HUGHES

N 941 OF 2000

CONTI J
3 MAY 2004
SYDNEY

IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA
NEW SOUTH WALES DISTRICT REGISTRY	N 941 OF 2000

BETWEEN:	AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION AND CONSUMER COMMISSION APPLICANT
AND:	RICHARD DAVID HUGHES T/AS CROWDED PLANET ALSO KNOWN AS DAVID HUGHES DAVID R HUGHES DAVID ‘ZERO’ HUGHES RICHARD D HUGHES DAVID Z HUGHES DAVID ZPG HUGHES DAVID Z MR ZERO POPULATION GROWTH AND DAVID ZERO POPULATION GROWTH HUGHES RESPONDENT

JUDGE:	CONTI J
DATE:	3 MAY 2004
PLACE:	SYDNEY

FURTHER REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

1. Subsequently to providing my Reasons for Judgment of 29 April 2004, and the making of orders on that day, the respondent (Mr Hughes) has sent to me via the Department of Corrective Services in Adelaide a facsimile message in the following terms (all emphasis being that of Mr Hughes): 

   ‘New Court orders 5 and 6 are impossible for me to do.

   A tenant who rents a house cannot transfer a title on that house, because he is only a renter not an owner.

   As I tried to explant at pp 220 and 221 of the transcript and again in my fax of 19/4.

   I do not own the domain name.
   I have never owned the domain name.
   I have never registered the domain name.

   The domain name is:
   
   It is owned by TELSTRA and registered at one of the USA registries.

   /dilipili
   is purely an EXTENSION to the domain name.  But still OWNED by TELSTRA.  I was merely their tenant paying $X per month.

   The ACCC and AGS and Williams know all this full well and have set up a trap for Judge Conti to fall into to make the Judge look like a right dickhead.

   IF you use Order 37 rule 3 the Court will transfer approximately

   800,000 Telstra Bigpond Home customers to the ACCC.  Is this your

   intention?

   CATCH 22.  By making it impossible to comply with Orders 5 and 6, that automatically triggers an extra 4 months prison after 14 days.  A Catch 22 if ever there was one.

   Please, please, please set up an urgent injunctive hearing in whatever city suits the Judge to vary his Orders 5 and 6.

   What does it matter about a few more thousands when the case has cost more than $400,000 so far?

   As new witnesses we need:-

   1.        Someone from Melbourne IT the com.au, org.au, and net.au registry.

   2.        Someone from Telstra Bigpond Home.

   3.        Video link to someone at Bigpond’s USA domain name registry.

   TIME LIMIT.  All the other contempt of court cases had a time limit.  (Apart from the 14 days).  How many months or years will a repetition incur contempt? Two years?

   Or did Allsop + Conti apply for the rest of my natural life?

   I am 95% sure I have paper records of DILIPILI a/c passwords and uplift FTP codes down at Kangaroo Island.

   Dennis Dodson of 17 Drew St Kingscote 5223, is demanding approximately
              40 weeks x $30 pw = $1200 in
   back storage fees before he will release any property, or filing cabinets, or files.

   Could the ACCC pay this quickly to allow me to do all I can regarding DILIPILI and Orders 5 + 6?

   Could we have an Order at the Injunction Hearing to this effect?

   And to the effect that I can have filing cabinet or all files in my cell in the ARC or in Yarala Sentence Prison?  To find DILIPILI codes + VISACARD Numbers.

   Yours sincerely
   David ZPG Hughes’

2. It is not my intention that Orders 5 and 6 should operate, nor do I think that the same do operate, so as to place Mr Hughes in contempt or disobedience, in the event that it is in fact impossible for him to effect a transfer of the domain name to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for technical reasons.  What is intended by those Orders, as I think my Reasons already reflect, is that Mr Hughes should sign any such authority and take such other steps as may be reasonably required of him for that purpose.  If notwithstanding Mr Hughes’ co-operation appropriately with the ACCC within the terms and requirements of Order 5, the domain name cannot be effectively transferred for some technical reason, Mr Hughes would clearly not be in default of Order 5.  In that event, the ACCC would need to rely upon the terms of Order 6, to the extent that the same may conceivably be effective for the purpose for which Order 6 was framed by the ACCC in the first place.

3. Mr Hughes has also queried the absence of any time limit expressed to take effect upon the operation of the Order which I have made prohibitive of further contravening conduct of Mr Hughes.  I would merely observe that such absence accords with established precedent.  If of course a relevant change in the general law takes place in the future, then depending on the nature and extent of the change, it may be open to Mr Hughes to have the Orders vacated retrospectively to the time of legislative change or at least prospectively, if the ACCC would not for its part reasonably acknowledge that in the events which ex hyposesi had thus happened, his conduct complained of had ceased to be proscribed.  All that is of course presently hypothetical.

I certify that the preceding three (3) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment herein of the Honourable Justice Conti.

Associate:

Dated:            3 May 2004

Counsel for the Applicant:	N J Williams SC
Solicitor for the Applicant:	Australian Government Solicitor
Respondent appeared in person
Date of Hearing:	5, 6 and 7 April 2004
Date of Judgment:	3 May 2004