Lucic & Lucic
[2025] FedCFamC1F 205
•24 March 2025
FEDERAL CIRCUIT AND FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA
(DIVISION 1)
Lucic & Lucic [2025] FedCFamC1F 205
File number: SYC 7281 of 2023 Judgment of: HARPER J Date of judgment: 24 March 2025 Catchwords: FAMILY LAW – EX TEMPORE – INJUNCTIONS – Where the wife seeks fresh injunctive relief against the husband – Where the wife seeks 14 days’ notice be given by the husband for modest transactions from personal and other bank accounts – Where the wife claimed there were deficiencies in the husband’s disclosure – Where an alleged deficit arose because of insufficient attention given by the wife to disclosed documents – Where there are existing injunctive orders in place – Where the proposed order by the wife is unnecessarily onerous – Where risk of dissipation of assets by the husband not clearly demonstrated – Where the wife does not establish on the balance of convenience that the injunctive relief sought should be imposed – No orders made for injunctive relief. Legislation: Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) ss 79, 95, 114 Cases cited: Agnarsson & Agnarsson (No 4) [2024] FedCFamC1F 407
Bevan & Bevan (2013) FLC 93-545; [2013] FamCAFC 116
Duarte v Morse (2019) 59 Fam LR 323; [2019] FamCAFC 93
Julien & Perrin (No 2) [2025] FedCFamC1F 50
Lin & Ruan (2021) FLC 94-024; [2021] FamCAFC 90
Sarto & Sarto (2022) 65 Fam LR 605; [2022] FedCFamC1A 16
Stanford & Stanford (2012) 247 CLR 108; [2012] HCA 52
Division: Division 1 First Instance Number of paragraphs: 21 Date of hearing: 24 March 2025 Place: Sydney Counsel for the Applicant: Mr Auld Solicitor for the Applicant: Dennis Paltos Family Lawyer Counsel for the Respondent: Ms Fisken Solicitor for the Respondent: Barkus Doolan Winning ORDERS
SYC 7281 of 2023 FEDERAL CIRCUIT AND FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA (DIVISION 1)
BETWEEN: MS LUCIC
Applicant
AND: MR LUCIC
Respondent
ORDER MADE BY:
HARPER J
DATE OF ORDER:
24 MARCH 2025
THE COURT ORDERS THAT:
1.The respondent husband file a Financial Statement within 28 days of the date of these orders.
2.The Application in a Proceeding filed 17 December 2024 and the Response thereto be otherwise dismissed.
3.The question of costs is reserved.
Note: The form of the order is subject to the entry in the Court’s records.
Note: This copy of the Court’s Reasons for judgment may be subject to review to remedy minor typographical or grammatical errors (r 10.14(b) Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth)), or to record a variation to the order pursuant to r 10.13 Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth).
Part XIVB of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) makes it an offence, except in very limited circumstances, to publish an account of proceedings that identify persons, associated persons, or witnesses involved in family law proceedings.
IT IS NOTED that publication of this judgment by this Court under the pseudonyms Lucic & Lucic have been approved pursuant to subsection 114Q(2) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).
EX TEMPORE REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
HARPER J:
These are property proceedings between the applicant wife, Ms Lucic (“wife”) and the respondent husband, Mr Lucic (“husband”).
The proceedings were commenced in 2023. Whilst they are not yet listed for final hearing, there is common ground between the parties that the asset pool is between $35 million and $40 million including the former matrimonial home which is held in the name of the wife.
In February 2024, injunctive relief was imposed upon the husband requiring him to provide, in summary, notice to the wife in relation to transactions in excess of $100,000.
There have been ongoing disclosure requests and issues together with the issuing of various subpoenas. It is unnecessary to describe the orders or extensions of time which have been granted, but it is ultimately the basic proposition that the wife does not trust the disclosure given by the husband and does not trust his provision of financial information.
The husband filed an Application in a Proceeding on 17 December 2024 and the wife filed her Response on 22 January 2025.
By her Response the wife seeks fresh injunctive relief which in summary would require the husband to provide to her 14 days’ notice in writing of any borrowing or drawing of any sum of money in excess of $1,000 in any single transaction or more than $5,000 in any seven-day period from a range of nominated accounts including personal accounts of the husband together with other accounts including an account of B Pty Ltd which conducts a business at Suburb C.
The wife in support of her application contends that she has a claim pursuant to s 79 of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) (“the Act”) which is sufficient to support a conclusion that she has a prima facie case which would be also sufficient for her claim to interlocutory relief. It was common ground, as I understood it, that the wife on a final basis had such a claim, although it has not yet been articulated in any detail during the proceedings.
The real heart of the argument was on the question of the balance of convenience, being whether there is sufficient evidence to conclude on an interlocutory basis that the husband is at risk of dissipating assets which would ultimately frustrate the processes of the Court and the Court should move to impose the injunctive relief sought to protect those processes.
I consider it unnecessary to descend into the detail of the deficiencies in disclosure and potential other criticisms made by the wife for the purposes of this judgment other than to observe the following:
(a)the wife claimed that the husband had failed, in the least in a timely manner, to disclose receipt of insurance monies in the sum of some $858,000;
(b)the wife contended that the husband has attempted, or is in the process of attempting, to sell industrial equipment, some of which has realised in excess of $1.4 million in the recent past;
(c)that the husband has not been forthcoming in his disclosure about what is to happen to remaining industrial equipment;
(d)that the husband has failed to give disclosure in relation to the sale of a property at Suburb C; and
(e)that a business operated by B Pty Ltd continues to make a loss of $1 million per year and the reason for it to continue in business is unknown.
The husband has given evidence that he suffered a serious medical diagnosis followed by treatment in the second half of 2024. In other respects the presentation of disclosure given by the husband has been burdensome and unsatisfactory from the point of view of the wife.
It is well-established in this Court that unless and until property rights or interests are adjusted pursuant to s 79, one spouse has no inchoate or other proprietary interest in the exclusive property owned by the other spouse (Bevan & Bevan (2013) FLC 93-545 at [80]; Lin & Ruan (2021) FLC 94-024 at [41], [48]–[49]; Sarto & Sarto (2022) 65 Fam LR 605 at [19]; Agnarsson & Agnarsson (No 4) [2024] FedCFamC1F 407 at [46]). The decision of the Full Court in Duarte v Morse (2019) 59 Fam LR 323 at [529]–[532], explained that certainly after the decision of the High Court in Stanford & Stanford (2012) 247 CLR 108, once property is held exclusively by one spouse, there is no occasion to characterise such property as “marital” or “matrimonial property”, because the starting point is simply to identify the parties’ existing property interests according to ordinary legal and equitable principles.
In relation to disclosure, I repeat and rely upon what I recently said in Julien & Perrin (No 2) [2025] FedCFamC1F 50 at [14]–[21], where I set out the propositions relating to disclosure and the consequences of non-disclosure which can flow, at least on at a final basis. I had occasion there to comment that when one reads the duty of disclosure with the overarching purpose now articulated in s 95 of the Act, complaints about another party’s disclosure must be formulated “by reference to general dictates of efficiency, timeliness, cost and proportionality” and that while the obligations and purpose of disclosure require real proactive and frank conduct by a disclosing party, they are not intended “to place one party in a position to undertake an unreasonable, overly detailed, unnecessarily fastidious or obsessive audit of another party’s expenditure, dealings and transactions over many years”, as opposed to ameliorating the disparity where there is a clear imbalance between parties in their access to relevant financial information.
The point emphasised by the wife in these proceedings is that it is the husband who has, and has had, almost the entire financial knowledge, during what has been a long relationship.
Having said that, the husband pointed out through his counsel that the wife currently is the sole owner of at least three parcels of real estate, including the former matrimonial home and she is involved in the negotiation for the sale of the Suburb C property, which may realise, according to evidence tendered by her, up to some $18 million, if sold according to a contract of sale, the front page of which was part of Exhibit A.
The question therefore is whether the wife has established on the balance of convenience that the order she seeks requiring the notice from the husband for transactions of such modest amounts as $1,000 or $5,000 to be given, something that the Court should impose.
I am not satisfied that it is. There are existing injunctive orders in place. The proposed order of the wife in my view is unnecessarily onerous and it is unclear that she has demonstrated that any risk of dissipation for which she contends is made out at an interlocutory stage on the material which she has tendered to the Court.
For example, it became apparent during the course of submissions that one deficit of disclosure upon which she initially relied, arose not because the disclosure had not been made, but because insufficient attention had been given to a letter in which the required disclosure of a bank account for the month of June 2024 had in fact been specifically identified.
In those circumstances, I am not satisfied that at this point in time any further injunctive relief as sought by the wife is just and equitable, or proper, or would fall within the ordinary tests which this Court has applied in invoking the jurisdiction in s 114 of the Act. Accordingly, I dismiss that part of the wife’s application.
That leaves for consideration the question of whether there should be an order for the husband to file a Financial Statement within 28 days of these orders. The husband agreed to such an order. I will make therefore an order that the husband file a Financial Statement within 28 days of the making of these orders.
I order that the Application in a Proceeding filed on 17 December 2024 and the Response thereto be otherwise dismissed.
I reserve the question of costs.
I certify that the preceding twenty-one (21) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Ex Tempore Reasons for Judgment of the Honourable Justice Harper. Associate:
Dated: 24 March 2025
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