Colgate-Palmolive v Cussons Pty Ltd

1. The de facto husband pay the de facto wife's costs of and incidental to the interlocutory determinations made on 28 February 2025 and 3 September 2025 fixed in the sum of $7,500 within 28 days from the date of this order.
2. The de facto husband's application for costs is dismissed.

Note: The form of the order is subject to the entry in the Court's records.

Note: This copy of the Court's Reasons for judgment may be subject to review to remedy minor typographical or grammatical errors (r 10.14(b) Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth)), or to record a variation to the order pursuant to r 10.13 Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth).

Part XIVB of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) makes it an offence, except in very limited circumstances, to publish an account of proceedings that identify persons, associated persons, or witnesses involved in family law proceedings.

IT IS NOTED that publication of this judgment by this Court under the pseudonym Naumov & Geissler (No 3) has been approved pursuant to subsection 114Q(2) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).

1. These reasons determine applications for costs made by each of Ms Naumov ("the de facto wife") and Mr Geissler ("the de facto husband") in the context of proceedings pursuant to s 90SM of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) ("the Act") for adjustment of property between them. The applications for costs are of, and incidental to, the determinations of a raft of competing interlocutory relief made on 28 February 2025 and 3 September 2025.
2. These reasons assume familiarity with the orders made and the reasons for judgment delivered on 28 February 2025 (Naumov & Geissler [2025] FedCFamC1F 132) and 3 September 2025 (Naumov & Geissler (No 2) [2025] FedCFamC1F 612) as to the Application in a Proceeding of the de facto wife filed on 3 December 2024 as amended on 4 May 2025 and as to the Response to an Application in a Proceeding of the de facto husband filed on 20 February 2025.
3. The de facto wife seeks that the de facto husband pay her costs fixed on an indemnity basis in the sum of $61,335. The de facto husband seeks his costs be paid by the de facto wife's prior solicitor, Mr Gideon Super ("Mr Super"), on an indemnity basis fixed in the sum of $65,000, or in the alternative, by the de facto wife. Each party opposes the costs orders of the other. Mr Super opposes the costs order sought personally against him.
4. For the reasons that follow, the application by the de facto husband for costs payable by the de facto wife's prior solicitor, Mr Super, or in the alternative by the de facto wife, is dismissed. An order is made for the de facto husband to pay the de facto wife's costs fixed in the sum of $7,500 within 28 days.

1. The orders made on 28 February 2025 broadly provide for three Notices of Objection filed by the de facto husband to subpoenas issued at the request of the de facto wife to be dismissed, a subpoena issued at the request of the de facto husband to be struck out, a consent order for the de facto wife's objection to a subpoena issued at the request of the de facto husband to the de facto wife's mother to produce documents to be upheld in part and as to regulating access to those documents, together with procedural orders.
2. The husband's prior solicitors ceased to act for him upon filing a Notice of Ceasing to Act on 20 August 2025.
3. The orders made on 3 September 2025 broadly provide for the de facto husband's sister, Ms Geissler and two corporations, S2 Pty Ltd and Geissler Nominees Pty Ltd, to be joined to the proceedings as the second, third and fourth respondents; restraining the de facto husband and the second respondent from disposing of property including E Street, Suburb F ("the [Suburb F] property") occupied by the de facto wife and the children; and litigation funding in favour of the de facto wife by way of a dollar-for-dollar order payable by the de facto husband.
4. There is no evidence that any costs have been paid to the wife pursuant to the dollar-for-dollar order.
5. Order 13 made on 3 September 2025 afforded each de facto party the opportunity to seek costs of and incidental to the interlocutory determinations.
6. The de facto wife relied upon her affidavit filed on 22 September 2025 and her written submissions filed on the same day. She opposed the costs orders sought by the de facto husband.
7. The de facto husband relied upon his affidavit filed on 7 November 2025 and his written submissions filed on the same day. He opposed the costs order sought by the de facto wife.
8. The de facto wife's solicitor, Mr Super relied upon his affidavit in reply filed on 10 November 2025 and his written submissions filed on the same day.
9. Mr Super ceased to act for the wife after the listing on 11 November 2025. The de facto wife's current solicitors filed a Notice of Address for Service on 14 November 2025.

1. The relevant principles as to costs are well settled. While the starting position established by s 114UB(1) of the Act is that each party pays their own costs, s 114UB(2) allows the Court to make such orders as to costs as it considers just if there are circumstances which justify it doing so. In considering what order for costs, if any, should be made, the Court is required to have regard to the matters set out in s 114UB(3) of the Act and give weight as it considers appropriate to any relevant factor. It is well settled that no single factor in s 114UB(3) has priority, nor must more than one factor be satisfied. Rather, any one factor may be sufficient.
2. Rule 12.15(1) of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth) ("the Rules") empowers the court to make a costs order against a lawyer where the lawyer has caused costs to be incurred by a failure to comply with the Rules or by "improper or unreasonable conduct" (Fing & Ma (No 2) [2025] FedCFamC1A 230 at [46]).

1. I accept that the financial circumstances of the de facto husband are substantially superior to those of the de facto wife. There is merit to the submission of the de facto wife that she is somewhat impecunious.
2. The net value of the de facto parties' property available for adjustment is in the range of not less than $20 million. The de facto husband has maintained the contention that most, if not all, of the property available for adjustment was solely sourced by way of a bequest received by him following the passing of his mother in 2015. A substantial portion of the de facto husband's non-superannuation property interests are held by way of trust structures which own real property.
3. The de facto husband was unsuccessful in his Notices of Objection taken to the subpoenas issued at the request of the de facto wife. There is merit to the de facto wife's submission that his objections had little prospect of success. The issue of the subpoenas occurred in the shadow of the de facto husband's failure or neglect to comply with his disclosure obligations.
4. Each party achieved a degree of success in the dispute as to the de facto wife's objection to the subpoena issued at the request of the de facto husband directed to her mother, Ms FF on 29 November 2024.
5. The gravamen of the de facto wife's first interlocutory application was generated by the de facto husband's conduct as to compliance with orders directed to the preservation of the Concord property and his repeated disclosure failures. While there is merit to the de facto husband's submission that the wife substantially narrowed and/or abandoned some of her initial claims in amending her Application in a Proceeding on 4 May 2025, I do not accept that "mixed results" were achieved by each party, or that he was "largely successful" in a holistic consideration of the determination of the discontinued and the determined disputed issues. While the de facto wife withdrew her relief for spouse maintenance, the sale of a watch and boat, and a restraint on the sale of possessions, she succeeded over the de facto husband's opposition in obtaining the orders on subpoena objection, injunctions for the preservation of property and the litigation funding relief by way of a dollar-for-dollar order payable by him.
6. The de facto husband's material in support of his costs application contained unparticularised assertions as to the conduct of the de facto wife's prior solicitor, Mr Super, that he:

20.1 Filed an ambit application seeking relief far beyond what was reasonable;

20.2 Subsequently abandoned key claims (spousal maintenance, mortgage payments, etc.) after forcing me to incur the costs of preparing a full affidavit;

20.3 Later sought indemnity costs, despite being the source of the wasted costs -conduct which I respectfully say is misleading and unprofessional.

(As per the original)

1. I do not accept that the husband has established an evidentiary foundation to conclude that Mr Super's conduct of the litigation was outside his client's instructions. Implicitly, there is no foundation to accept a proposition other than Mr Super acting with professionalism in pursing his client's interests and appropriately observing his obligations to the court as a legal practitioner. The de facto husband has not established that the conduct of Mr Super was "far beyond what was reasonable", nor has he established that the conduct of Mr Super has been misleading or unprofessional.
2. A broad consideration of the above factors justifies a departure from the starting position that each party pays their own costs, such that the de facto husband pay 50 per cent of the de facto wife's costs. The de facto husband has not established justifying circumstances to obtain the benefit of an order for costs payable in his favour by Mr Super or the de facto wife. His application for costs will be dismissed.

The basis of the de facto wife's costs to be paid

1. The de facto wife sought payment on an indemnity basis. Colgate-Palmolive v Cussons Pty Ltd [1993] FCA 536; (1993) 46 FCR 225 at 233 sets out circumstances where indemnity costs may apply. It is well-settled that the court should not lightly depart from the ordinary rule that costs are payable on a party/party basis or at scale and that an order for indemnity costs requires the establishment of exceptional circumstances (Mansfield and Ors & Mansfield and Anor [2019] FamCAFC 186; (2019) FLC 93-920).
2. The circumstances of the interlocutory determinations in this matter could not be characterised as exceptional. The relief for indemnity costs is refused. Costs will be payable by the de facto husband on a party/party basis.

1. Section 114UB(5)(a) of the Act and r 12.17(1)(a) of the Rules permits the Court to adopt a course to fix costs without formal assessment or taxation, although it is accepted that it is entirely a matter of discretion. The fixing of a sum must occur judicially but is not required to be conducted in any "scientific or formulaic manner" (Idoport Pty Ltd v the National Australia Bank Ltd [2007] NSWSC 23 at [10]).
2. The touchstone as to the fixing of costs is to ensure that the process is logical, fair, and reasonable. These parties have engaged in protracted litigation each incurring a not insignificant account of costs to date. An order for costs in a specified amount avoids the expense, delay, and aggravation arising out of an assessment of costs (Graham & Squibb [2019] FamCAFC 33; (2019) FLC 93-892 at [92]).
3. Each of the parties filed a large volume of evidence for the purposes of the interlocutory applications. The value of the indemnity costs incurred by each as sought is indicative of the magnitude of work undertaken in the proceedings.
4. The de facto wife did not adduce any evidence as to the quantum or value of her costs incurred on a party/party basis. She did adduce evidence as to the terms of the cost agreement entered with her solicitor, and counsel, and schedules itemising particulars of the costs incurred and claimed. An evaluation of these documents and the scale of costs payable on a party/party basis as contained in Sch 3 to the Rules permits a broad assessment as to what would be a reasonable fixing of the de facto wife's costs on a party/party basis at scale as $15,000. Fifty per cent of that assessment is $7,500. An order that the de facto husband pay the de facto wife's costs fixed in that sum is just.
5. No submissions were made as to the time to pay the costs ordered. The standard period of 28 days to pay will apply.

1. An order will be made that the de facto husband pay the de facto wife's costs fixed in the sum of $7,500 within 28 days. An order will be made that de facto husband's application for costs is dismissed.

I certify that the preceding thirty-one (31) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment of the Honourable Justice Campton.