Koundouris v The Owners - Units Plan No 1917 (No 3)

The Full Court of the Supreme Court of New South Wales considered an application to amend an earlier costs order. The applicant, Mr Koundouris, sought to amend an order made by the Court on 16 August 2019, which had dismissed his appeal against the respondents, The Owners - Units Plan No 1917, and ordered him to pay their costs. The dispute centred on whether the original costs order contained an accidental slip or omission that could be corrected under the slip rule.

The primary legal issue before the Full Court was whether the Court had the power to amend its previous costs order pursuant to the slip rule, which allows for the correction of accidental slips or omissions in judgments or orders. This required the Court to determine if the alleged error in the costs order was indeed an accidental slip or omission, or if it represented a substantive change to the Court's intended decision.

The Court reasoned that the slip rule is intended to correct errors that do not reflect the true intention of the Court at the time the order was made. It is not a mechanism for a party to seek a reconsideration of the merits of the decision or to introduce new arguments. In this instance, the Court found that the applicant had not demonstrated that the original costs order contained an accidental slip or omission. The applicant's arguments essentially sought to re-litigate the basis upon which costs were awarded, rather than identifying a genuine error in the recording of the Court's decision.

The Court therefore dismissed the application to amend the costs order.