Golden Leap Investment Ltd v Glorious Property Holdings Ltd

On 7 October 2024, the judgment creditors obtained judgment against the judgment debtors in proceedings in the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Court at first instance (Hong Kong judgment). Subsequently, proceedings were commenced by way of summons in this Court seeking orders for the registration of the Hong Kong judgment.

On 12 August 2025, the principal registrar of this Court relevantly ordered that the Hong Kong judgment be registered in this Court under the Foreign Judgments Act 1991 (Cth) (“Act”), and provided a period of fourteen days, after service upon the judgment debtors of notice of the registration, in which to apply to have the registration set aside and otherwise stay the enforcement of the Hong Kong judgment. The latter orders were required by s 6(4) of the Act which provides that:

Rule 53.6 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW) (“UCPR”) expressly provides that notice of the registration of a judgment must be served on a judgment debtor. The rule goes on to provide that service of that notice must be personal "unless the Supreme Court otherwise orders".

Service of such a notice is important because it marks the commencement of the period – in this case fourteen days – within which a judgment debtor can exercise their rights under s 7 of the Act to have a registration of a foreign judgment set aside. While a specific period is required by s 6(4) of the Act to be identified (and provided for in the orders made on 12 August 2025), my attention has been drawn to the decision of Schmidt J in Sywak v Sywak (2009) 236 FLR 471; [2009] NSWSC 1393 at [21], which notes that the Court retains a residual discretion to entertain an application to set aside a foreign judgment after the period provided for in the orders has expired, by reason of s 6(5) of the Act.

Despite reasonable efforts by the solicitors for the judgment creditors, the second judgment debtor, Zhang Zhi Rong, has not been personally served with notice of the registration of the Hong Kong judgment.

The judgment creditors now request that the Court order that personal service be dispensed with, and that instead, orders be made for what is – in effect – substituted service.

The source of the Court's power to make the orders sought is likely found in UCPR r 53.6(2)(b). However, as was submitted by the judgment creditors, the exercise of that power is informed by the approach taken to analogous applications for substituted service made under UCPR r 10.14.

The principles to be applied on applications brought under UCPR r10.14 are well established. To obtain an order for substituted service, an applicant must generally satisfy two criteria. First, that service "cannot practicably" be affected. On this issue, I note and adopt the useful summary of the applicable principles found in Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police v Xin (No 2) [2024] NSWSC 1606 at [43]. Secondly, the Court must be satisfied that the steps proposed to be taken in lieu of service will address "the purpose of bringing the document to the notice of the person concerned". As was observed by Colvin J in Commissioner of Taxation v Caratti (No 2) [2018] FCA 1500 at [10]:

Commencing with the first issue, I am satisfied that the judgment creditors "cannot practicably" affect personal service of the notice of registration of the Hong Kong judgment upon the second judgment debtor. The evidence establishes that the judgment creditors have caused their solicitors to undertake a range of different searches of publicly available material including ASIC company searches, personal name searches and title searches for certain properties with a view to identifying contact details for the second judgment debtor, and properties at which he may reside or otherwise be located. Having done this, the information obtained through those searches was provided by those solicitors to process servers who, over a period of several months, have attempted to affect personal service on the second judgment creditor.

Further, attempts have been made to contact the second judgment creditor on telephone numbers and via email addresses found to have been associated with him. While the various steps taken have provided a range of information about the potential means by which the second judgment debtor might be located or contacted, the attempts made to personally serve the notice of registration on him have proved unsuccessful.

That brings me to the second issue. A range of different modes of substituted service have been proposed. I am satisfied that there is a probability that they will bring the notice of registration of the Hong Kong judgment to the attention of the second judgment debtor.

I turn briefly to the ways in which it is said the notice of registration of the Hong Kong judgment might be brought to the second judgment debtor's attention.

Two email addresses have been identified which are said to be connected with the second judgment debtor, and have, at least in the past, been used by him. The first is an email address which appears in certain of the transaction documents which form the basis of the debt that is the subject of the Hong Kong judgment. That email address also appears on a business card which bears the name of the second judgment debtor and was used by him.

The second email address is located in a different commercial document executed by the second judgment debtor. That email address was identified as the means by which he could be contacted for the purposes of the transaction contemplated by that different agreement.

Two mobile telephone numbers have been identified, which the evidence suggests are linked to the second judgment debtor for reasons similar to those which I have just identified in relation to the email addresses. That is, they have been located in transactional documents, and (in the case of one of them) also appears on the business card which bears the second judgment debtor's name.

Finally, two different properties have been linked to the second judgment debtor. The first is a property owned by Ms Gao Wei Ping, who is also known as Rochelle Gao Zhang. That address is located in XXX. It is also listed in an ASIC search as the registered address of Avantaus Property Holding Nominee Pty Ltd, of which the second judgment debtor was previously a director and shareholder.

The second address would appear to be commercial premises in Pyrmont, which is listed as the registered office of Triumphant Exports Pty Ltd. The second judgment debtor was formerly a director of that company and remains one of its shareholders. A further address has been identified in Lugarno. That address is not directly associated with the second judgment debtor but is revealed by the evidence to be the personal address of the director of Triumphant.

I am satisfied that one or a combination of the following steps will likely bring the notice of registration of the Hong Kong judgment to the attention of the second judgment debtor:

To the extent that there remains at least a possibility that the taking of these steps will fail to bring the registration of the Hong Kong judgment to the attention of the second judgment debtor, the residual discretion identified in Sywak means that making the orders now sought by the judgment creditors will not entirely deprive him of an ability to move to have that registration set aside..

In these circumstances, I propose to make orders in accordance with the short minutes of order provided to me by the judgment creditors, subject to an amendment I have made in order 2 so that it reads "notice of registration of the judgment and orders obtained in this proceeding by the judgment creditors on 12 August 2025 is taken to have been served on the second judgment debtor fourteen days after the following has taken place". (Emphasis added for additional words).

Accordingly, I make the following orders:

And note that it is open to the second judgment debtor to apply to have Order 5 set aside in the event that an application is made by him to have registration of the Hong Kong judgment set aside pursuant to s 7 of the Foreign Judgments Act 1991.