RENNARD & YILMAN

This matter came before Aldridge J concerning an application by the Applicant Wife against the Respondent Husband. The dispute involved interim orders sought by the Applicant Wife, including restraints on the Respondent Husband concerning their child and various properties, as well as an anti-suit injunction.

The court was required to determine whether to grant interim injunctive relief to the Applicant Wife. Specifically, the legal issues included whether to restrain the Respondent Husband from removing the child from Australia, from dealing with certain overseas properties, and from commencing or continuing legal proceedings in any country other than Australia concerning matters arising from the marriage and its breakdown.

Aldridge J made orders pending further determination. The Respondent Husband, his servants, and agents were restrained from removing the child from the Commonwealth of Australia without the wife's written consent, with a request for the Australian Federal Police to place the child on the Airport Watch List. The Respondent Husband was also restrained from selling, mortgaging, assigning, alienating, or further encumbering specified overseas properties without the wife's written consent or a court order, and from preventing the wife from lodging caveats over his interest in those properties. Furthermore, the Respondent Husband was restrained from commencing or continuing legal proceedings in any country other than Australia against the wife concerning divorce, the child, property division, financial support, or other matters arising from their marriage and its breakdown, pending the determination of the wife's application for a final anti-suit injunction. These orders were made conditional upon the Applicant Wife giving the usual undertaking as to damages within forty-eight hours. The Applicant Wife was also ordered to notify the Respondent Husband and his lawyers of these orders within twenty-four hours. The matter was stood over for directions.