Background
Michael Lee was the sole director and shareholder of Result Strata Management Pty Ltd, which operated a strata-management business. Lee held an individual strata-management licence, and the company held a corporate licence. After an earlier suspension imposed in October 2024 was withdrawn because the decision-maker lacked authority to exercise the relevant statutory power, an Acting Registrar issued a search warrant for the business premises on 14 January 2025. Fair Trading subsequently suspended the licences, appointed a manager, restricted access to company accounts and, in May 2025, cancelled the licences and permanently disqualified Lee and the company from holding licences.
Lee and the company sought judicial review of several decisions, but Lee ultimately focused on the warrant. He argued that Fair Trading had failed to disclose the earlier invalid suspension and other potentially favorable information to the issuing officer, tainting the warrant and, through a claimed domino effect, the later regulatory actions. The company entered liquidation during the proceedings, and its liquidator did not consent to Lee continuing the company’s claim.
The Court’s Holding
Elkaim AJ dismissed the company’s proceedings because Lee could not pursue them on behalf of the company after liquidation without the liquidator’s consent. The Court also dismissed Lee’s proceedings. Although the original action had begun within three months of the warrant, the warrant was not challenged until August 2025, outside the time prescribed by UCPR r 59.10. Lee never sought an extension, and the Court found no basis to grant one on its own initiative.
The claim would also have failed on its merits. The October suspension had been conceded to be invalid because of a delegation defect, not because the underlying complaints lacked substance, so its invalidity did not undermine the warrant’s factual basis. A warrant applicant with material supporting reasonable suspicion was not required to address every exculpatory explanation, and Lee had no right to be heard before the ex parte warrant application. Independently, the Court would have declined judicial review because Lee had withdrawn an available NCAT merits-review proceeding without adequate explanation. The requested relief was also futile because the unchallenged permanent disqualifications would remain effective even if the warrant, suspensions or licence cancellations were set aside.
Key Takeaways
- A judicial-review ground introduced after the applicable three-month period may be barred even when the proceeding itself began on time, particularly where no extension is requested or justified.
- The invalidity of an earlier regulatory decision does not necessarily infect a later search warrant when the earlier defect concerned the decision-maker’s authority rather than the evidentiary foundation.
- The Supreme Court may refuse judicial review where an adequate merits-review route was available but abandoned, and it may deny relief that would have no practical effect because an unchallenged decision remains operative.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that challenges to regulatory enforcement must identify each impugned decision, comply with judicial-review time limits and seek relief capable of producing a practical result. It also confirms that the ex parte character of a search-warrant application does not require the applicant to present every potentially exculpatory contention or afford the target a prior hearing.
For regulated professionals and businesses, the case highlights the risks of abandoning a statutory merits-review process in favor of narrower supervisory proceedings. A court may decline judicial review where the specialist tribunal could have examined the dispute more fully and no satisfactory reason is given for leaving that route.