Goldenwater LDL Pty Ltd v Kin Sun Chan

The case of Goldenwater LDL Pty Ltd v Kin Sun Chan involved the plaintiffs alleging that the first defendant engaged in fraud and acted in breach of fiduciary duties in relation to certain real property transactions. The plaintiffs also pleaded facts concerning conversations conducted in Mandarin between the second and third plaintiffs and the first defendant. The defendants sought to have certain paragraphs of the pleadings struck out on the basis that the plaintiffs were obliged to plead the words spoken in Mandarin together with an English translation, and also sought to lift a stay on a notice of non-party disclosure seeking production of immigration and travel records in respect of the second and third plaintiffs and the first defendant.

The primary legal issues addressed by the court were whether the relevant paragraphs of the pleadings should be struck out on the basis of failure to disclose a reasonable cause of action or tendency to prejudice or delay the fair trial of the proceeding, and whether the stay of the notice of non-party disclosure should be lifted. The court considered the relevant principles of pleading and discovery, and found that the plaintiffs had not failed to disclose a reasonable cause of action. The court also found that the documents sought by the defendants' notice of non-party disclosure lacked relevance to the proceedings and that there was a reasonably simple and inexpensive way of proving the matter sought to be proved by the document.

The defendants’ applications were dismissed, and the court ordered that the parties would be heard as to costs.