Michael Williams v Connectify, Inc. (trading as “Speedify”)

These ex tempore remarks and reasons have been prepared over the last 45 minutes. They will be refined before Monday and provided to the Registrar. [1] There is no doubt as to the Court’s power to make the orders sought by the plaintiff on an urgent and ex parte basis but, in the absence of reasonable notice to the defendants, the power is exercised sparingly for reasons that are self-evident. [Authorities to this effect have been added in revising the judgment for publication.]

This is an application for urgent relief in proceedings commenced by a statement of claim filed in Court at around 2:00pm today, that is Saturday 31 January 2026 (Sydney time). The plaintiff is Michael Williams and the putative first defendant is Connectify, Inc. (trading as “Speedify”), an entity described by the plaintiff as a Delaware Corporation, the head office of which is in the state of Pennsylvania in the United States of America. There is a named second defendant, Alexander C Gizis, who resides in Philadelphia and is said to be the Chief Executive Officer of the first defendant and of the Speedify business. Because of the circumstances and urgency with which the Court was constituted at the plaintiff’s request, neither defendant has had the opportunity to place evidence before the Court or to make submissions.

At the risk of oversimplification, and based entirely on the plaintiff’s version of events, the controversy between the parties involves a contractual dispute arising out of the plaintiff purchasing a “MiFi / multi-WAN bonding router device” on or about 4 December 2025. At that time the plaintiff was in Australia, and he asserts that the router was subsequently activated whereby a contract was entered or confirmed. The purchase price was a little less than AUD$3,000 and the router was paid for and thereafter dispatched on 4 December 2025. Later, on around 25 January 2026, the plaintiff says he purchased a yearly subscription to a router licence which was said to be connected to the aforementioned routing device. For completeness, I note that there was an earlier transaction – on 2 December 2025 – where the plaintiff entered a “Speedify Families Unlimited Three-Year Subscription” which was said to be for the term 2 December 2025 to 2 December 2028. The payment for that plan came to AUD$251.11 and was pursuant to Invoice #494648. That fact is pleaded by the plaintiff by way of background to the relevant transactions.

The plaintiff says that his intention was to use the routing service during overseas travel and for his business connected with his company, Glexia Pty Ltd (“Glexia”). Glexia is a company registered in Australia which is said to provide telecommunications products. The plaintiff says that the business needs “continuity-dependent connectivity to access and administer the Plaintiff’s secure telecommunications network … and to supervise and manage lawful interception assistance and other required carrier activities” (statement of claim at [30]).

According to the material filed by the plaintiff, including his affidavit and submissions (both oral and in writing), the plaintiff has substantial and important contractual obligations with the Australian government including the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) as well as connections to, or contracts with, the South Australian Police Force. Because of what I understand to be the sensitivity of some of these contracts and the service provided to those entities, Mr Williams was somewhat and necessarily constrained as to what he could say during the argument conducted this afternoon by audio visual link from Puerto Escondido to the courtroom in Queens Square Sydney.

Mr Williams left Australia on 22 January 2026 to travel overseas. As hinted in the last paragraph, he is currently in Puerto Escondido on the Pacific Coast of Mexico.

The dispute between the parties arose from what the plaintiff describes as the defendants’ unilateral disconnection of the router service which it is, on the plaintiff’s case, contractually obliged to provide. The result is that the plaintiff says he is unable to conduct or undertake the core businesses of Glexia. Despite repeated requests to the defendants, the routing service has not been restored. In the material filed today, and in accordance with his obligations of candour, the plaintiff has postulated the kinds of excuses or defences upon which the defendants may rely or proffer for their conduct.

The plaintiff contacted the 24-hour emergency line of this Court at around 11:30am today (that is, Saturday 31 January 2026). My Associate was notified and made contact with the plaintiff at 11:32am (Sydney time). The following material was then provided by way of email at around 11:35am:

I note in passing that the plaintiff’s affidavit was witnessed by a Sydney based solicitor, Andrew Tiedt, who has joined us online for this part of the hearing, that is the judgment, but who tells me he does not appear for Mr Williams in these proceedings although he does act – or has acted – for him in other unrelated proceedings, the details of which I know nothing about.

The plaintiff was given leave to file all of this material in Court, and it has been sealed and received for the purposes of this afternoon’s hearing. As I follow what was said before I adjourned, the plaintiff has undertaken to pay the necessary filing fee.

As particularised in the statement of claim, Mr Williams’ cause of action is couched in terms of his status as an Australian consumer and relies on obligations under domestic – that is Australian – consumer protection legislation. However, the losses to which he refers appear not to arise out of his conduct as an ordinary consumer but, rather, result from his corporate activities (or more accurately, his inability to conduct those activities because of the defendants’ default).

The Court was constituted as a matter of urgency and commenced sitting at 2:00pm on Saturday 31 January 2026. At that point, it was 9:00pm on Friday night in Puerto Escondido and around 10:00pm in Philadelphia. As I deliver judgment now, it is around 4:30pm on Saturday afternoon in Sydney and the early hours of Saturday morning in Mexico and on the east coast of the United States.

The plaintiff sought to be heard ex parte although he has told me that he provided the defendants with notice that he was commencing proceedings and bringing an urgent application. He provided some evidence in support of that to my Associate. I have not formally marked or exhibited that material, but it is in the form of emails which will be kept on the court file and it does suggest that Mr Williams notified the defendants of the fact he was bringing the action and provided them with copies of the material that was filed in Court this afternoon.

The plaintiff told me in argument that the last response he had from the defendant was in the form of a reversed middle finger (“up yours”) emoji which I take to be this: 🖕

At this point the plaintiff seeks urgent injunctive relief requiring the American company (that is the first defendant) to reinstate his plan and reconnect his routing service. It is well established, as the plaintiff acknowledged in his written submissions as well as the statement of claim and notice of motion, that a mandatory injunction such as this will only be made in the most compelling of circumstances, especially where (as here) the defendants have not had the opportunity to be heard and where (as here) the target of the injunction is located outside of Australia: see but contrast, for example, Businessworld Computers Pty Ltd v Australian Telecommunications Commission (1988) 82 ALR 499 at 503 (Gummow J); [1988] FCA 206, Instant Rewards Pty Ltd v Baker Motors Pty Ltd [2003] NSWSC 312 at [19] (Palmer J), John Tumminello v TAB Limited [2011] NSWSC 1639 at [43] (Slattery J) and MP Water Pty Ltd v Veolia Water Australia Pty Ltd [2021] NSWSC 582 at [61] (Rees J).

The power to make such orders is always discretionary and where the defendants are situated outside of the jurisdiction, issues of enforceability fall to be considered along with a myriad of other considerations which constitute the “balance of convenience” guiding the exercise of the discretion. In Humane Society International Inc v Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd (2008) 165 FCR 510; [2008] FCA 3 it was said at [19]:

In Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Chen (2003) 132 FCR 309; [2003] FCA 897 Sackville J at [43] and [45] made the following observations about granting an injunction directed to a foreign entity under the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth):

As I understand it, the plaintiff’s major concern is that he and his company are currently contractually obligated to communicate with an expert witness in the United States in relation to a separate dispute over, to use a generic term, cyber currency or crypto currency. He asserts that the defendants’ failure to provide him with the services via his router connection places him in a position where he will default in his own contractual obligations. Further, and relatedly, the plaintiff is concerned that he will suffer immediate and ongoing “reputational damage” if he fails to provide the services required and is unable to maintain the communications with the expert witness.

He also says that he may be called upon by ASIO or the AFP to activate telecommunications interception services. However, when pressed on this assertion, Mr Williams frankly acknowledged that he is not really expecting such a request from ASIO or the AFP and, I gather, he has not previously been asked to activate such intercepts.

I should say at this point that the foregoing is a massive oversimplification of the material filed by the plaintiff, but time does not permit me to go into all of the details this afternoon. I do not mean, by that oversimplification, to diminish the substance or efficacy of the plaintiff’s cause of action or the effort he has put into providing submissions to the Court this afternoon.

The plaintiff has offered the usual undertaking as to damages. During oral argument, he offered to put up about AUD$50,000. However, it is far from clear what the potential damages would be, if any. Nor is there evidence of how difficult it would be for the defendants to re-establish the router connection after business hours on a Friday night in Philadelphia.

The plaintiff argues that what he seeks today is not so much a mandatory injunction (as contemplated by ss 65 and 66 of the Supreme Court Act 1970 (NSW)) but is better described as “restorative relief”, that is a plea through the Court to reinstate that for which he has paid and that the defendants are contractually obliged to provide, and did commence to provide. This is the reference to the routing services and plans for which the plaintiff has paid and which the defendants activated but then de-activated. (As the cases referred to earlier show, the strictures that traditionally applied to the grant of a mandatory injunction, and the distinctions previously accepted, may no longer be as significant.)

I propose to list the matter before the Common Law Registrar at 9:30am on Monday 2 February 2026 for possible referral either to the Duty Judge sitting in Common Law or the Duty Judge sitting in the Equity Division. The matter was filed in the Common Law Division which is why it has come to me but certainly some aspects of the case would ordinarily be dealt with by the Equity Division. However, I am not being prescriptive when I say that, and a judge of either Division is authorised to deal with the case. On Monday, the matter will be placed in the list to be conducted by the Common Law Registrar and the issue of which Division will hear the matter may be a question to be considered.

As to whether to make the urgent interlocutory relief today, I make the following observations and record some fundamental findings:

For those necessarily brief reasons, I make the following orders: