Costs grow in Cardaci row

The widow of former CFC Group chief Marc Cardaci has won another Supreme Court battle with her former brother-in-law, with the Supreme Court throwing out a push to have her cover his $244,000 legal bill.

The lawsuit centred around costs incurred during another instalment in the five-year stoush between the pair over the heir of the family empire’s estate and control of two trusts in his name worth $40 million.

Late last year, the court removed Philip Cardaci as executor of his brother’s estate, appointing Mae Cardaci as trustee of two trusts and executor before ruling that she could use trust funds to probe potential actions against him.

Philip Cardaci has since appealed the court judgement, while Ms Cardaci has lost a push to have her $225,000 in legal fees paid for using trust funds.

The outstanding issue of costs has prompted yet another lawsuit at the hands of Philip Cardaci, which Supreme Court Justice Jeremy Allanson said he believed had no chance of succeeding.

Mr Cardaci’s new lawyer, Kanaga Dharmananda, told the court his client was at an impasse, pushing for the costs of the lawsuit to be covered by Ms Cardaci.

But Justice Allanson said correspondence behind the scenes amounted to a letter of demand, an order he deemed “unreasonable” before dismissing the application.

“This letter is a demand for payment of $244,000 in legal fees; that’s not a terribly courteous way of operating,” he said.

“Your proposals were not proposals towards having the amount of your costs determined so that they could be paid, your proposals were in fact directed towards the conduct of the plaintiff; this was entirely the wrong forum for those sorts of things.

“Let’s just say, I don’t think any of those proposals had any chance of succeeding or were reasonable.”

Lawyers for Ms Cardaci sought an order for indemnity costs, arguing there was never a real prospect the court would entertain the requests made.

Justice Allanson vowed to deal with the issue of the cost of the hearing when he hands down the reasons for his determination later this week.