George Town Council v NEILSEN

The case of George Town Council v NEILSEN was heard by Judge McGuire. The dispute concerned the validity of a bankruptcy notice issued by the George Town Council against Mr NEILSEN. The Council sought to rely on an order for costs made by the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (RMPAT) as the basis for the bankruptcy notice.

The central legal issue before the court was whether the RMPAT order for costs, as quantified by a Certificate of Taxation, constituted a "final judgment or final order" for the purposes of section 40(1)(g) of the *Bankruptcy Act 1966* (Cth), which is a prerequisite for the issuance of a bankruptcy notice under section 41 of the same Act. Specifically, the court had to determine if the RMPAT order, once quantified by the Certificate of Taxation and registered with the Supreme Court, could be enforced as a final judgment.

Judge McGuire reasoned that for a bankruptcy notice to be validly issued, it must be based on a final judgment or order the execution of which has not been stayed. While section 28(7) of the *RMPAT Act 2020* (Tas) permits proceedings for the enforcement of an order for costs as if it were a judgment of the court in which it is registered, the court found that the RMPAT order itself had not been registered with the Supreme Court. The Certificate of Taxation, which quantified the costs, had been registered, but the underlying order had not been separately extracted for registration. Furthermore, the court accepted that an order whose quantum is uncertain cannot be enforced until it is quantified.

Consequently, the court found that the RMPAT order for costs, as presented, did not meet the requirements of a final judgment or order capable of supporting the issuance of a bankruptcy notice under the *Bankruptcy Act*. The application for the bankruptcy notice was therefore dismissed.