Talacko v Talacko

[2009] VSC 349

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA Not Restricted

AT MELBOURNE

COMMON LAW DIVISION

No. 7819 of 2009

HELENA MARIE TALACKO, ALEXANDRA BENNETT, MARTIN TALACKO, ROWENA TALACKO AND MARGARET HELEN TALACKO	Plaintiffs
v
JAN EMIL TALACKO, DAVID TALACKO, PAUL ANTHONY TALACKO AND JUDITH GAIL TALACKO	Defendants

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JUDGE:	Kyrou J
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	10 August 2009
DATE OF JUDGMENT:	10 August 2009
DATE OF REASONS FOR JUDGMENT:	21 August 2009
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	Talacko v Talacko
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2009] VSC 349

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MAREVA ORDER – Requirements for obtaining – Foreign assets – First defendant executed transfers of land located overseas to second and third defendants living overseas – Gifts – Scope of Mareva orders in relation to foreign assets – Whether exceptional circumstances required – Whether impugned transaction can be reversed before final hearing – Meaning of ‘status quo’ – Meaning of ‘good arguable case’ – Proper law of causes of action.

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Plaintiffs	Mr S J Howells	Holding Redlich
For the Firstnamed Defendant	Mr D J Williams	Findlay Arthur Phillips
No appearance for the Second, Third and Fourthnamed Defendants

HIS HONOUR:

Introduction

1. On 10 August 2009, I made Mareva type orders against the first three defendants in the exercise of the Court’s inherent jurisdiction (‘August Order’).  At that time, I said that I would deliver my reasons for the August Order on 21 August 2009.  These are my reasons.

1. The August Order is set out in the annexure to these reasons.  The properties affected by the August Order, which are located in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Germany, are listed in attachment A to that order (‘Properties’).

1. The August Order follows a number of earlier interim orders that I have made in respect of the Properties both in this proceeding (‘2009 proceeding’) and in proceeding number 1793 of 1998 (‘1998 proceeding’), from which the 2009 proceeding stems. 

Background

1. The plaintiffs in the 2009 proceeding are also plaintiffs in the 1998 proceeding.  The first defendant in the 2009 proceeding (‘Jan Talacko’) is the sole defendant in the 1998 proceeding. 

1. The 1998 proceeding was commenced by the plaintiffs on 2 October 1998 to enforce an agreement that they alleged was made in 1990 between the first plaintiff (‘Helena Talacko’), Jan Talacko and their late brother, Peter Talacko, in respect of the Properties.  The Properties, which had been owned by the parents of Jan, Helena and Peter Talacko, were confiscated by the Communist regimes of Czechoslovakia and East Germany progressively from 1948.  After those regimes fell in the late 1980s, the governments of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the re-unified Germany passed laws for the restitution of confiscated properties.  Interests in the Properties were transferred to Jan Talacko under the restitution laws.  The plaintiffs alleged that Jan Talacko had agreed to hold the Properties on behalf of himself and his siblings in equal shares and that he had breached that agreement.  Their claim was based on breaches of contract, trust and fiduciary…