Siracusa v Siracusa

This case concerns a dispute between two brothers, Mark Anthony Siracusa and Michael Brendan Siracusa, and their dispute over the enforcement of a settlement deed executed in July 2021. The settlement deed was intended to divide the parties' various joint assets and businesses, and it contained numerous clauses imposing obligations on the parties. The plaintiff sought orders to compel the defendants to perform certain of those obligations, including transferring ownership of certain properties to the plaintiff and paying down loans secured by other properties. The plaintiff also sought an order for the third defendant, a legal practice, to pay over a share of the proceeds of sale of a property to the plaintiff. The plaintiff's claim was based on the proposition that the settlement deed constituted an executory contract, in respect of which the plaintiff was entitled to specific performance.

The court held that specific performance was not available to enforce the obligations in question. Although the settlement deed was an executory contract in so far as it required the transfer of the Downer properties to the plaintiff, it was also an executed contract in so far as it imposed other obligations on the parties. Some of those other obligations were not amenable to specific performance in the strict sense, and the court was not satisfied that the obligations for which specific performance was sought were severable from the remainder of the settlement deed. The court declined to grant specific performance of part of the settlement deed. It also declined to make an order requiring the third defendant to pay over funds to the plaintiff, as there was no basis for such an order. The plaintiff's other proposed orders were conditional upon the grant of relief in respect of the transfer of the Downer properties and the payment down of the loans secured by the Michelago and Mugga Lane properties, and thus they did not need to be considered. The Amended Originating Application was dismissed, and there was no reason why costs should not follow the event.