Macedonian Orthodox Community Church St Petka Incorporated v His Eminence Petar the Diocesan Bishop of Macedonian Orthodox Diocese of Australia and New Zealand
[2017] NSWSC 1618
At a glance
Source factsCourt
Supreme Court of NSW
Decision date
2017-11-22
Before
Slattery J, McDougall J
Source
Original judgment source is linked above.
Judgment (9 paragraphs)
Judgment
- The first plaintiff, Permanent Custodians Limited ("PCL") and the second plaintiff, BNY Trust (Australia) Registry Limited ("BNY"), seek judicial advice from the Court under Trustee Act 1925, s 63.
- The first and second plaintiffs are wholly owned subsidiaries of BNY Mellon Australia Pty Limited ("BNY Mellon"). The plaintiffs (referred to collectively in these reasons as "the Trustees") undertake various trusteeship roles under a Senior Bond Trust Deed and a Junior Bond Trust Deed; (together "the Trust Deeds") and a suite of other financing documents ("the Debt Facility") that was entered into on 1 December 2006. For convenience, and without further elaboration of definitions, the defined terms in these financing documents have been used throughout these reasons.
- The Debt Facility regulated the issue of Senior Bonds and Junior Bonds (together "the Bonds"), with a total face value of some $1.9 billion to finance a rail project between the Rail Corporation of New South Wales and Reliance Rail Pty Ltd ("Reliance Rail") for the supply and maintenance of "Waratah" trains, to operate on the New South Wales railway network.
- Reliance Rail and its associated entities commenced proceedings (No. 2017/185479) in June 2017 against the Trustees in the Commercial List of this Court seeking declarations relating to the proper construction of the documents that constituted the Debt Facility ("the main proceedings").
- McDougall J gave judgment in the main proceedings on 23 August 2017: Reliance Rail Pty Limited v Permanent Custodians Limited [2017] NSWSC 1111. The effect of McDougall J's judgment was to permit Reliance Rail to refinance the Debt Facility and redeem the bonds before their respective due dates without the consent of the Senior Bondholders or Junior Bondholders, provided certain conditions were satisfied.
- The judicial advice now being sought relates to a proposed refinancing of the Debt Facility, following the contested litigation of the main proceedings. Stated in general terms, the issue for judicial advice is whether in the circumstances that have occurred in relation to the proposed refinancing the Trustees, PCL and BNY would be justified in treating certain required conditions of the Debt Facility as being satisfied, such that the refinancing can now be completed.