Federal Court of Australia

Ogbonna v CTI Logistics Limited [2021] FCA 1664

ORDERS

THE COURT ORDERS THAT:

1.    On or before 17 January 2022, each party do file and serve a written outline of submissions of no more than 10 pages in support of the party's application for summary judgment identifying the particular parts of the affidavit material relied upon in support of the application.

2.    On or before 24 January 2022, each party do file and serve any written outline of submissions in response of no more than 5 pages.

3.    The applications for summary judgment be listed for hearing at 10.15 am AWST on 3 February 2022 for no more than half a day.

4.    The oral submissions of each party in support of the application shall be limited to 30 minutes unless otherwise ordered.

5.    The costs of today be reserved.

Note:    Entry of orders is dealt with in Rule 39.32 of the Federal Court Rules 2011.

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

(Revised from the transcript)

COLVIN J:

1    Mr Ogbonna today makes an application that I should recuse myself on the grounds of, as I understand it, actual bias by reason of the reasons that I have delivered in the separate proceedings WAD 338 of 2019: Ogbonna v CTI Logistics Limited [2021] FCA 1491. He has raised complaints in relation to the reasoning of that matter, in relation to whether I applied the relevant provisions of the Bankruptcy Act 1966 (Cth), as to whether I properly excluded material and whether I relied on material which he described as being tainted. Each of those matters are matters which go to the mode of reasoning and the manner in which the hearing was conducted and are matters which Mr Ogbonna is able to raise upon appeal.

2    In my view, none of them raise issues which might provide a foundation for a claim in relation to my ongoing conduct of these separate proceedings that there is either actual bias or an apprehension of bias, and for those reasons, I decline his application and we will proceed today with the case management hearing.

3    So I will now proceed to make directions about the listing of the matter. In relation to Mr Ogbonna's position as to this matter - he seeks to have it heard more urgently - there is very limited time available, and I have to make an assessment as to how matters can be listed in relation to the time that is available. The next available time for ordinary listing of matters in my docket is 3 February 2022, and I am not persuaded that the issues in this case are such that steps should be taken to see whether there is available another judge who might be able to hear the matter more urgently. So for those reasons the matter will be listed on 3 February 2022.

Associate:

Dated:    3 December 2021