Mineral Resources Engineering Services Pty Ltd v Commonwealth Bank of Australia; Hay v Commonwealth Bank of Australia (No 3)

In Mineral Resources Engineering Services Pty Ltd v Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the plaintiff, Mineral Resources Engineering Services Pty Ltd (MRES), along with a related plaintiff, Hay, sought to amend their statement of claim against the defendant, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), to include claims of unconscionable conduct in equity or under the unwritten law, under section 51AA of the Trade Practices Act 1975 (Cth), and under section 12CA of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 (Cth). CBA applied to strike out parts of the plaintiffs' pleadings, asserting that they failed to establish the necessary elements for the claims. The court was tasked with determining whether the pleadings identified the elements with sufficient precision.

The legal issues before the court involved the adequacy of the plaintiffs' pleadings to establish the elements of unconscionable conduct, namely, special disadvantage, the disadvantage affecting the plaintiff's ability to make a judgment in its own best interests, and exploitation of that disadvantage by the defendant. The court had to assess whether the pleadings contained sufficient facts to meet these criteria. The court also had to consider whether the plaintiffs' reliance on paragraphs relating to a separate cause of action was sufficient to address the deficiencies in the pleadings.

The court found that the pleadings contained significant deficiencies that had not been addressed from previous versions, leading to the striking out of certain parts of the pleadings. The court concluded that the plaintiffs had failed to plead material facts which made out any of the required elements. The plaintiffs' reliance on paragraphs relating to a separate cause of action did not sufficiently address the deficiencies in the pleadings. The court held that the pleadings did not identify the elements with sufficient precision to enable the defendant to know and understand the case it had to meet. As a result, the court struck out specific parts of the pleadings and directed that the plaintiffs could not further amend their statement of claim without leave of the court. The court also ordered the plaintiffs to pay the defendant's costs of the application.