EQUITY – TRUSTS AND TRUSTEES – IMPLIED TRUSTS – CONSTRUCTIVE TRUSTS – KNOWING RECEIPT – where an employee of the applicant induced the first respondent, through its managing director, the second respondent, to invoice the applicant for work done by a company owned and controlled by the employee – where in fact no such work had been performed by the employee’s company and the invoices were a fabrication – where the applicant submitted that the issue of the fictitious invoices by the respondents constituted knowing assistance of the employee – where the applicant submitted that the respondents knowingly received the proceeds of payment of the invoices – whether the respondents’ held the kind of knowledge necessary to be found accessorily liable for the employee’s breach of fiduciary duty.

EQUITY – GENERAL PRINCIPLES – MISTAKE RECOVERY OF MONEY PAID OR EXPENDED – MONEY PAID BY MISTAKE – MISTAKE OF FACT – where the applicant paid money to the first respondent under an operative mistake of fact – where the respondents entered into the arrangement with the applicant’s employee in good faith – where the respondents would be placed in a worse position if ordered to make restitution of payments that it had passed on to the employee’s company than if it had not received payments from the applicant at all – whether the respondents could rely on a change of position defence to a claim by the applicant for restitution.

APPEAL AND NEW TRIAL – PROCEDURE – QUEENSLAND – WHEN APPEAL LIES – FROM DISTRICT COURT – BY LEAVE OF COURT – where the proposed appeal does not raise any significant questions of law but rather the application of well-established principles of law to the facts – whether, in the circumstances, leave to appeal should be granted.

Tim Castle appeared for the applicant.