Henry Durack, instructed by Keypoint Law, successfully appeared for the plaintiffs, including a large property developer based in China, in the matter of Donghao Capital Pty Limited & Anor v Shaoyong Guo.

The proceedings involved a commercial claim for over $8 million for breach of a deed connected to a plan to acquire a commercial office tower in Queen Street, Brisbane.

The matter was settled favourably for the plaintiffs by way of a deed. Its terms included holding a consent judgment for the plaintiffs for $7,995,000 in escrow, vacating the four day final hearing and standing the matter over for a short period to allow the defendant to make two initial instalment payments of the settlement sum, failing which, consent judgment would be entered.

While an amount exceeding that presently due was purportedly paid by the defendant into an account with an institution purporting to be a bank in the United Arab Emirates, unusually, those funds were unable to be withdrawn or transferred to the plaintiffs externally, and a subsequent search of the local financial regulator revealed the entity was not registered as a bank.

The plaintiffs, on an urgent application for entry of consent judgment in the Common Law Duty List (before S McNaughton J), marshalled sufficient evidence to satisfy the Court that the payments due had not in fact been made by the defendant pursuant to the terms of the deed of settlement, the purported bank may well be a sham and that it was in the interests of justice to enter the consent judgment.

A copy of the decision may be found here.