"What I want you to do is give you the benefit of preliminary findings, but a bit of difficulty with this case that I am obliged to raise myself and I want to hear more from you about it, both of you. I am sure you want to say a lot about it. But I will just hand you some preliminary points because I think it will make it easier for you. And I suppose the first point is that all things being equal, I would be at the moment making a finding in favour of the plaintiff. But I am not doing that. I will get to the reasons why I might have done that if there hadn't been a problem. Basically the plaintiff serves on a written agreement, and as I have said, the fundamental principle is that the parties can do what they like, and I suppose if there was not this problem that I will mention later, I suppose the bywords meant would be, be careful what you sign and above all else, be careful of taking money and giving it away, which is apparently what has happened. But the very fundamental first question is, is there any justification for looking outside the parties' written agreement - outside the four corners of their agreement. And I say written agreement because whatever the way the case is put they purport to have reduced it to writing on 27 April by way of a loan agreement. I noticed, however, there has been plenty of evidence led without objection about the intentions of the parties so I suppose I will have to deal with that, but I think probably I could say at the outset, that what we are dealing with in the extrinsic evidence that was led that there was no need for extrinsic evidence. On an analysis of the document of 27 April 1998 contained in exhibit D, as I said, they were reduced to writing and on analysis, it is nothing but an agreement for an interest free loan for 120 days, which is probably enough. However, to remove doubts, it is expressed to be against - and I guess this wasn't absolutely necessary, but someone has put it in, it is against consultancy fee agreements to Less documented under separate cover so as an exhibit to the loan agreement, or annexure, I suppose, more properly, and so to the extent that it needs to be explained, there is ample evidence from Mr Duckett it was to keep Mr Booth honest, given that he was an undischarged bankrupt. Now I am not so sure if that proposition was agreed to by the defendant wholeheartedly, but I am proceeding on the assumption that it was known or assumed that he was an undischarged bankrupt. Anyway, I am prepared to give evidence about this later. Now, that mightn't have been a problem but I hesitate to call it clever, but it is definitely a device. It may not have been a problem but for the fact that Mr Booth was available to take the money and that a stakeholder wasn't resorted to and that Mr Stuart's company was resorted to. But in any event, I will confine myself to an analysis of the position if I had decided in favour of the plaintiff. It wouldn't have been difficult to deal with the extrinsic evidence that was led which purports to explain this agreement as an agency agreement. In my view, the extrinsic evidence fails entirely to characterise or justify it as an agency agreement. The evidence is entirely to the contrary. As I have said, Booth could have been paid direct. I am confining myself to the defence intention that it was simply an agency agreement and not an attempt to do anything more, but Booth could have been paid direct. As I said, he is apparently bankrupt, and that is known which is more important. Mr Steward says that he - in correspondence that he looks forward to long term relationships and he arranges key meetings, he chairs a meeting, he is termed -he is called a project liaison person, there are titles attached. Mr Hollingsworth confirms that he was there to make sure Mr Stuart did nothing silly, and Mr Duckett mentioned a separate agreement with Booth at the meeting. That is confirmed in the agreement. So, all those things suggest that there was more to it from Mr Stuart's point of view than a simple loan agreement. Finally, Mr Stuart, however, says he was only doing as he was told, which is entirely unconvincing. So from the point of view of the plaintiff, any extrinsic evidence that is led to characterise this is an agency agreement is entirely unconvincing, and there seems to be no reason to step outside the four corners of the agreement, because for this very important reason, the four corners rule was never - has never been invoked to destroy the very agreement that appears on paper. So, really all that evidence was inadmissible, but ever if it is admitted, it goes too far and purports to re-characterise the agreement entirely or change its very fundamental nature and on that basis, I suppose the law simply says that if you entered into an agreement which you say is an entirely different agreement, you are bound by the first agreement. You may introduce extrinsic evidence to explain the agreement that still stands, but that is re-jigging the whole thing. It is a lost cause. So that the extrinsic evidence does nothing more than confirm. It does the worst thing it could ever do which is to confirm the other party's case. However, on the face of it, the difficulty with this is that from the plaintiff's point of view now, the whole thing that we have done to avoid - purportedly to avoid Mr Booth dissipating the money, although I don't think that is even correct. I don't think it is done to avoid Mr Booth dissipating money because Mr Duckett says that he doesn't care what happens to the money once he paid it to Mr Stuart's company, so that can't be the reason. The reason, in the absence of a stakeholder for paying the money to a company as opposed to an individual, such as Mr Stuart, he could have equally received it as an individual or as a company. The reason for doing that is to give some legitimacy, I think, to the payment of the money and the only conclusion that I am left with is that the whole agreement was set up to avoid the appearance of Mr Booth receiving any money at all because he was a bankrupt and would otherwise have to account to his trustee for the funds, or to his creditors, actually. So, the only reason for having this agreement, in my view, is to avoid Mr Booth's creditors. Now, the difficulty with that is that it doesn't simply just stop with the defence, and it doesn't on the face of it affect the plaintiff until you have a look at the basic text on legal contracts and realise that if this contract, or loan, is entered into for the purpose of avoiding the creditors then it is against public policy. The difficulty with that is that subject to what you two can come up with, well, from the point of view of Mr Gray's client, subject to what you refrain from coming up with, given the position can't get any better, Mr Blewett, the difficulty I suppose is that the authorities, particularly the High Court decision of David Securities Pty Ltd and the Commonwealth Bank [1992] HCA 48; (1992) 175 CLR 353 concerning a loan by a bank, of course, and a mistaken assumption that a - or allegedly mistaken assumption that a certain clause was legal, whereas it wasn't. The High Court decided that if you - that a voluntary payment is not recoverable and voluntary means you make payment by choice, meaning that the payor is prepared to assume the validity of the obligation ought to make the payment irrespective of the validity or invalidity of the obligation. Now, the inference I draw from Mr Mackie is that from - Mr - what is your client's --"