Sandhurst Golf Estates Pty Ltd v Coppersmith Pty Ltd [2014] VSC 217

Initial registration of a financing statement on the PPSR is very easy.  You simply go to the Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) website and follow the links, enter the prescribed data, pay a small fee and hit a button or two.

The ease of registration, compared to a paper based registry such as land titles or the former company charges register, makes the PPSR more open to abuse.

In Sandhurst Golf Estates Pty Ltd v Coppersmith Pty Ltd [2014] VSC 217 three companies had financing statements registered in respect of their personal property without basis.  The registrations were maintained, in the face of demands to remove them, as leverage to pursue a claim one of the defendants had against Sandhurst and others.  The claim was not to a security interest in respect of personal property, but rather a claim to some equitable interest in certain land.  Accordingly, the claim was not registrable:  see paragraphs  [87] to [107] of the judgment of Robson J.

The financing statements following the administrative “show cause” process under the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth).

That was not the end of the matter – in this case the defendants threatened to, and did, make more registrations to pursue their claim.  Each time a new financing  statement, or financing change statement, is registered, then the administrative process has to be repeated.  The administrative process is time consuming and expensive.  In the meantime, before it resolves, the existence of a record of sham financing statements can adversely affect the innocent party, especially with its own financiers and may amount to an event of default.

In Sandhurst the plaintiff companies successfully sought injunctions restraining further financing statements, or financing change statements, from being registered by the defendants.  The injunctions were obtained by the exercise of the Court’s inherent injunctive jurisdiction, rather than under any express power given to the Court by the PPSA:  see paragraphs [108] to [119].   The application is the first of its kind in Australia.

An application had also been made by the plaintiffs relying on s182 of the PPSA, but the Court did not need to deal with it.  However it is notable,and perhaps an unintended omission from the PPSA,  that the section does not contain an express power to enjoin registration of a financing statement, but does contain an express power to restrain the making of an amendment demand.

Further,  having established the absence of any security interest in the plaintiff companies’ personal property, the Court found that the substance of the defendants’ claims to an equitable interest to be irrelevant.  This meant that discovery in respect of those claims was not warranted, and that evidence and argument about those claims, except insofar as it was necessary to demonstrate the absence of a security interest, was not permitted.   The finding prevented the disocvery process in the application itself from being used in an abusive manner.   See paragraphs [120] to [121].

The author appeared as Counsel in the proceeding for the plaintiffs, instructed by Minter Ellison.  Nick Anson, Partner and Jane Salveson, Special Counsel have prepared an interesting alert regarding this case and particularly the problems arising out of Sham registrations, which can be found here.

Regards

Mark