Commonwealth Bank of Australia v Tegg

The Plaintiff commenced these proceedings on 10 November 2014 seeking amounts pursuant to guarantees given by each of the three Defendants for loans and facilities made available to various companies associated with the Defendants.

The Second Defendant, acting for himself, filed a Defence on 22 December 2014. The Defence in its entirety reads:

The Plaintiff now moves by Motion filed 23 June 2015 that the Defence be struck out. Although it is not strictly necessary for the purposes of determining whether or not the Defence should be struck out, the affidavit evidence discloses that the documents that were requested by the Second Defendant as referred to in his Defence were provided to that defendant at a date prior to the filing of the Defence.

I am informed that those documents show that although the initial guarantee signed by the Second Defendant was restricted to $100,000 the subsequent documents executed by him have raised the limit on the guarantee to the amount now sued upon.

The Defence does not provide any defence to the claim. Nor is it in the form required by the rules and the proper practice of pleading.

The Plaintiff's Motion must be acceded to. The Defence filed on 22 December 2014 by the Second Defendant is struck out. Particularly because the Second Defendant is appearing for himself it is appropriate that he be given one further chance to plead an appropriate defence that provides an arguable answer to the claim that is made.

For that purpose I will order that if the Second Defendant wishes to serve a further Defence to the claim, such Defence is to be filed and served by Thursday, 6 August 2015.