(a) whether any useful purpose would be served by setting aside the judgment; and

(b) how it came about that the applicant became bound by a judgment regularly obtained.[17]

1. It has been said by the New South Wales Court of Appeal in the case of Pham v Gall[18] that the discretion to set aside the judgment is encapsulated by the question whether there was 'a real likelihood that it would be unjust to the defendant to allow the judgment to stand'.[19] Further, the party in default needs to explain the reason for the default and the nature of the proposed defence and that those matters inform the exercise of the discretion.[20] Further, the discretion is also guided by consideration of the importance of finality of litigation, such that 'controversies, once resolved, are not reopened except in a few, narrowly defined, circumstances'[21] citing the High Court case in D'Orta-Ekenaike v Victoria Legal Aid.[22]

How it came about that the defendant became bound by a judgment regularly obtained

1. In this case the defendant became bound by a judgment because she failed to attend trial. She had notice of the trial. She was in Vietnam. Although she seems to have been in hospital when the trial took place, no steps were taken to notify the court, or the plaintiff's solicitors of that fact. Nor did the defendant take any steps to put on proper evidence that could have allowed the fact that she was in hospital to have been considered at the time that the trial was called on.
2. If the only criteria was whether there was a proper explanation as to how the applicant became bound by a regularly entered judgment, the facts put forward by the defendant may, on their own, be sufficient. However, as I will turn to, there is no proper description of a reasonably arguable defence.

Lack of evidence of a reasonably arguable defence

1. In this respect the plaintiff's case at trial was as follows and I have derived this description from my earlier Reasons at [6]:
   1. On 19 April 2019 the plaintiff and the defendant entered into an oral agreement for the exchange of currency (April agreement).
   2. There were express terms of the April agreement to the effect that:
      1. The plaintiff would deposit to the defendant's nominated bank account in Vietnam the amount of 3.5 billion VND.
      2. The defendant, within two days of receiving the payment would repay to the plaintiff in Australia the equivalent value of 3.5 billion VND in AUD.
      3. The exchange rate applicable for the deposit was 1 AUD = 16,500 VND, accordingly a sum of $212,121.
      4. Pursuant to the agreement the plaintiff caused 3.5 billion VND to be transferred to the defendant's nominated bank account in Vietnam.
   3. On or about 20 May 2019 the parties entered into a further oral agreement for the exchange of currency (May agreement). Express terms of the May agreement were that:
      1. The plaintiff would deposit to the defendant's nominated bank account in Vietnam 3 billion VND.
      2. The defendant would, within two days of receiving the payment of 3 billion VND, pay the plaintiff the equivalent value of that sum in AUD.
      3. The exchange rate applicable for the deposit was 1 AUD = 16,180 VND, accordingly a sum of $185,414.
   4. Pursuant to the agreement on 20 May 2019 the plaintiff caused 3 billion VND to be transferred to the defendant's nominated account in Vietnam.
   5. In reduction of the amounts she was obliged to pay the defendant, she has paid the plaintiff $286,401.
   6. In breach of the May agreement the defendant has failed to pay the plaintiff $111,134 being the balance owing under that agreement.
2. The plaintiff's evidence was given on oath as was the evidence from a second witness being Thi My Diem Ho (Ms Ho).[23]
3. I accepted the evidence given by the plaintiff of the payments made by the plaintiff to the defendant and repayments made by the defendant to the plaintiff.
4. Returning to the defendant's position, she swore an affidavit in opposition to an application for summary judgment on 8 September 2023. In that affidavit, she deposed as follows:
   1. She denied making any agreement with the plaintiff to exchange currency with him.[24] She seemingly accepted that the plaintiff transferred 3.5 billion VND on 19 April 2019 and 3 billion VND on 20 May 2019 but she said these 'transactions ... did not belong to the plaintiff and was not for the purposes of the purported currency exchange'.
   2. Those payments were for business purposes in Vietnam unrelated to these proceedings and she could not recall what those transactions were for as she runs a busy garment import and export business and those transactions 'could relate to any payments at the time'.[25] She does not know Ms Ho and is unsure of any relationship between Ms Ho and the plaintiff.[26]
   3. The defendant then deposed 'The Plaintiff has no privity of contract and has brought a claim under the incorrect jurisdiction in relation to Vietnamese transactions'.[27] She said that the payments she made were not repayments of the loan, but were moneys that she had loaned the plaintiff for unrelated matters between April 2019 and February 2021.
5. The matters that were deposed to by the defendant in her summary judgment application were later distilled into an amended defence filed on her behalf by Tan and Tan Lawyers. In my earlier Reasons at [8] I summarised the amended defence. I summarised the amended defence because it informed the issues which arose on the pleadings which I also described in [9] of my earlier Reasons. I noted in my earlier Reasons that in substance, by the amended defence the defendant:

(a) pleads there was never an agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant to exchange currency at any time;[28]

(b) admits that 6.5 billion VND was transferred to her bank account in Vietnam by two instalments in April and May 2019 but denies that 'that sum of money originated from or belonged to the plaintiff';

(c) pleads the amount 6.5 billion VND was transferred to her by a third party, Ms Ho for a separate business transaction;

(d) admits paying the plaintiff $286,401, but claims it was for a separate loan given in March 2019, for which the plaintiff was repaid in full;[29] and

(e) pleads that Vietnam has exclusive jurisdiction over the dispute.

1. In my earlier Reasons I identified the issues which arose on the pleadings as being:
   1. Was there any agreement between the parties for the April and May remittances?
   2. If so, what were the terms of that agreement (or agreements)?
   3. Who deposited the sum of 6.5 billion VND into the defendant's bank account? If it was Ms Ho, did she act as the plaintiff's agent in making the deposit?
   4. Were the payments totalling $286,401 made by the defendant to the plaintiff made to reduce the amount owing under a loan agreement as claimed by the plaintiff, or were they intended for another purpose or in accordance with a different arrangement between the plaintiff and the defendant?
2. In my earlier Reasons, I noted the documentary evidence tendered[30] which included payment orders from a bank in Vietnam, BIDV, which evidenced the payments made to the bank account of the defendant, SMS messages between the plaintiff and the defendant and between the plaintiff and Ms Ha. I also outlined the oral evidence given by the plaintiff and Ms Ho.
3. In this respect, the plaintiff gave evidence of the discussions he had with the defendant relating to the currency swap and the payment terms as to the currency swap which was that the agreement was for an immediate exchange of money. I also referred to Ms Ho's evidence which I summarised that in my earlier Reasons at [60], specifically that for each payment to the defendant, the plaintiff had asked her to transfer the sums 3.5 billion VND and 3 billion VND to the defendant, that she went to a branch of BIDV, and arranged the transfer of the money to the bank account of the defendant that the plaintiff had provided to her. The bank issued a payment order confirming and evidencing each transaction. Further the plaintiff was required to pay to Ms Ho the money she paid to the defendant's Vietnamese bank account.[31]
4. The plaintiff's claim at trial was that he had advanced a total amount of VND which was valued at approximately $397,500 and that the defendant had repaid to him $286,401 leaving a balance of $111,134. It was not in issue, by virtue of the amended defence, that the defendant had paid the plaintiff $286,401. The issue was whether the payment made by the defendant to the plaintiff of that amount related to another transaction, such that the payments should not be construed as repayments of a sum of $397,500 she owed the plaintiff for the currency swap (which was the plaintiff's case). The other transaction was, according to the defendant, a loan she made to the plaintiff which the plaintiff repaid in full.
5. In my earlier Reasons, I made express findings that there was no other relevant business or commercial arrangement between the plaintiff and the defendant other than the currency swap which was in issue on the plaintiff's claim. In this respect, the plaintiff gave oral evidence of those matters and, as I have said in my earlier Reasons at [74.8], a fair reading of the SMS messages exchanged between the parties did not indicate any other business arrangement for transactions between the plaintiff and the defendant from which it could be inferred that the plaintiff related to another purpose.
6. In this respect, the voluminous SMS messages between the plaintiff, the defendant and the plaintiff and the defendant's daughter corroborated the sum of money paid by the defendant to the plaintiff and what the purpose of those payments were, namely it was a repayment of a loan. Further, as I set out at [73] of my earlier Reasons there were various acknowledgments by the defendant in SMS messages of her indebtedness to the plaintiff. I set out three examples of that in my earlier Reasons at [73] before making the factual findings at [74] which led me to the conclusion that the plaintiff's claim had been made out.
7. I also dealt with in the final part of my earlier Reasons, the defendant's pleaded position that Vietnam had exclusive jurisdiction.
8. In this application, the defendant has not engaged with the factual findings I made in my earlier Reasons. She has not sought to provide any elaboration (or documentary evidence) of the loan she says she made to the plaintiff which the plaintiff repaid in full. One would have expected evidence in the form of the defendant's own bank statements, which, on her version of events of there being a loan, would have proved the money flowing from her bank account to the plaintiff and being repaid by the plaintiff to her. Nor has she sought to explain the SMS messages referred to in my earlier Reasons and put on evidence which would cast doubt on the inferences I have drawn from the messages to reach the findings I made in my earlier Reasons.
9. In my opinion, the defendant cannot for the purposes of this application rely upon a summary judgment application and affidavit that took place some years ago and an affidavit which contained assertions of what the payments she made was for and to deny the advances of money as being for other unstated business purposes.
10. In light of the earlier Reasons I delivered for the judgment being entered against the defendant, it was, in my view, incumbent upon the defendant to deal with the evidence that was led at trial including the contemporaneous SMS messages and then put before the court her own evidence of why those SMS messages should not be interpreted the way in which I interpreted them in the earlier Reasons.
11. Similar observations relate to putting on documentary evidence of the other business transaction which the plaintiff had denied, whereby she had made a loan to the plaintiff for the amounts which matched the payments which the plaintiff has said were in reduction of the amount owing for the currency swap.
12. Put simply, without swearing an affidavit condescending to particulars of what her defence would be if the judgment were set aside, leads me to a conclusion that the defendant has no reasonable or arguable defence to the plaintiff's claim.
13. By reason of:
    1. The significant court time already engaged in this case being two days of hearing which has resulted in the entry of a judgment with written reasons outlining the nature of the plaintiff's case, the evidence to support his claims and why his claims should be accepted.
    2. The lack of evidence from the defendant of her defence to the plaintiff's claim which is the subject of the judgment entered on 18 February 2025, including why the facts and evidence put forward by the plaintiff should not be accepted (or should even be doubted).
    3. The fact that eight months has now passed since the judgment was entered and during which time the defendant has not presented a defence to the claim, or an alternative version of the events propounded by the plaintiff.
    4. The delays in bringing this application from the time when Tan and Tan was briefed in March 2025, notwithstanding that an appeal was filed.
    5. The paramount objective of litigation is the just resolution of disputes in a timely and efficient manner and the importance of finality of litigation, such that 'controversies, once resolved, are not reopened except in a few, narrowly defined, circumstances'.
    6. The expense incurred by the plaintiff to obtain the judgment and commence execution combined with the obvious costs to reconduct a trial in circumstances where the defendant has not sought to engage with the factual findings that I set out based on the plaintiff's evidence at trial.
14. I conclude that no useful purpose would be served by setting aside the judgment. The end result of the hearing on 10 and 11 February 2025 cannot be doubted on the materials before me. In all of the circumstances, it is not unjust to the defendant to allow the judgment to stand. For these reasons, I dismiss the defendant's chamber summons.

I certify that the preceding paragraph(s) comprise the reasons for decision of the District Court of Western Australia.

[1] Huynh v Dang [2025] WADC 4 (earlier Reasons).

[2] See earlier Reasons [10] - [43] inclusive.

[3] Defendant's affidavit sworn 30 May 2025, par 4.

[4] Defendant's affidavit sworn 30 May 2025, par 6.

[5] Defendant's affidavit sworn 30 May 2025, pars 9 - 10.

[6] Defendant's affidavit sworn 30 May 2025, pars 19 - 21.

[7] Defendant's affidavit sworn 30 May 2025, pars 22 - 25.

[8] See earlier Reasons [34] - [36].

[9] Defendant's affidavit sworn 30 May 2025, page 9.

[12] Affidavit of Hoang Huy Tran sworn 1 October 2025, page 6.

[13] Defendant's submissions filed 8 October 2025, par 23.

[14] Bevan v Bevan [2016] WASC 7.

[16] Vacuum Oil Co Pty Ltd v Stockdale [1942] NSWStRp 31; (1942) 42 SR (NSW) 239.

[17] Northey v Bega Valley Shire Council [2012] NSWCA 28 [16]; Pham v Gall [2020] NSWCA 116 [55], [108], [110].

[19] Pham v Gall [43], [55] - [56], [102].

[21] Zhengzhou Lvdu Real Estate Group Co Ltd v Shu (No 2) [2025] NSWSC 405 [34].

[22] D'Orta-Ekenaike v Victoria Legal Aid [2005] HCA 12; (2005) 223 CLR 1 [43].

[23] See earlier Reasons [46] - [61].

[24] Defendant's summary judgment affidavit, par 18.

[25] Defendant's summary judgment affidavit, pars 21 - 22.

[26] Defendant's summary judgment affidavit, par 23.

[27] Defendant's summary judgment affidavit, par 24.

[31] See earlier Reasons [48] - [53].