Nguyen v Hwang

JUDGMENT

1. Ms Nguyen has brought various proceedings in the Local Court, this Court and NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal, following her purchase of a pharmacy. In these proceedings she claims, amongst other things, that the defendants engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct. She also pursues claimed breaches of the contract, pursuing matters which appear to raise questions of Medicare fraud. The matter is listed for hearing in March 2025.
2. Chen J fixed that hearing date appreciating that the parties' ongoing dispute about the evidence the defendants still wished to serve had yet to be resolved.
3. By a motion supported by affidavits sworn by their solicitor Mr Zhao, the defendants sought leave to serve further evidence. Those orders were necessary, they not having complied with earlier orders about the service of their evidence. They also pursued the production of various documents, earlier disputes about production having been dealt with in Nguyen v Hwang [2023] NSWSC 782.
4. The parties resolved their differences about the documents. Ms Hwang also sought, if the leave the defendants sought was granted, an order requiring the defendants to pay $1,450,000 into Court, given her concerns about asset dissipation. But this was not pressed.
5. At the hearing, while there was no issue about the Court's power to make the orders finally pressed, whether it should exercise that power remained in issue and had to be resolved in light of the requirements of ss 56 to 60 Civil Procedure Act 2005 (NSW).
6. Having heard the parties I granted the defendants leave to serve further evidence and made orders to which the parties then agreed, which provide a timetable for service of evidence, including expert evidence, which both parties need to put on before the March hearing.
7. I took that course having taken into account the matter's difficult procedural history. It includes failures, on both sides, to comply with the Court's orders; the agreement reached in relation to production; the defence case that given the nature of Ms Nguyen's allegations, factual findings made in these proceedings may lead to further investigation and even criminal prosecution; Mr Zhao's evidence about what lay evidence had already been prepared and what was required to finalise the expert evidence which the defendants wished to pursue; Ms Nguyen's case, that there was now but limited time for her to meet the proposed evidence; and that the matter had been listed in March on the understanding that the defence motion still had to be resolved.