Background
LFDB and SM had been engaged in a long-running dispute over the division of property following the end of their domestic relationship. In 2015, the Federal Court registered under the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Act 2010 (Cth) a New Zealand High Court judgment concerning their relationship property. LFDB unsuccessfully sought to set aside that registration in earlier Federal Court proceedings, and the Full Court dismissed his appeal.
In this interlocutory application, LFDB advanced more than 30 grounds for declaring the registration a nullity or setting it aside. Among other things, he alleged that the registering officer lacked power, the required judgment and certified hard copy had not been lodged, and aspects of the New Zealand orders concerning superannuation, Australian property, maintenance, suppression, and non-parties were not registrable or enforceable.
The Court’s Holding
Jackman J rejected every ground. The earlier judgments had conclusively upheld the registration’s continuing legal effectiveness. Cause-of-action estoppel and issue estoppel therefore prevented LFDB from contending either that the same registration was void or that it should be set aside under the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Act.
The Court held alternatively that Anshun estoppel barred all of the grounds because they were sufficiently connected with the earlier challenge that it was unreasonable not to raise them then. LFDB’s claim that the registration documents had been unavailable until 2025 was contradicted by the 2016 hearing transcript, which showed that his counsel had possessed and tendered those documents.
The Court declined to address challenges to four separately registered New Zealand costs judgments and a Full Court costs order because those orders arose in proceedings not before it. It ordered that the present application be dismissed upon determination of whether a vexatious-proceedings order should be made against LFDB, set a later hearing on that issue, and reserved the amount and basis of SM’s costs for decision on written materials.
Key Takeaways
- A party cannot relitigate the validity or continued effectiveness of a foreign-judgment registration already upheld by final judgments between the parties.
- Issue and cause-of-action estoppel may extend to a premise legally indispensable to an earlier decision, including the premise that a challenged registration was validly made.
- Anshun estoppel independently bars connected arguments that unreasonably were not advanced in the earlier proceeding, particularly where the materials needed to make them were already available.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores the finality of Australian rulings concerning judgments registered under the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Act. A litigant cannot avoid prior adverse decisions merely by recasting a request to set aside registration as a claim that registration was void from the outset.
It also illustrates the procedural consequences of repeated collateral challenges. Although no vexatious-proceedings order was made in this judgment, the Court initiated a separate process to determine whether LFDB should be prohibited from commencing further Federal Court proceedings without leave.