Hubexo Australia Pty Ltd v CoreLogic Australia Pty Ltd (Amendment of Particulars)

This case sits inside a broader commercial dispute in the Federal Court. The public reasons show that the applicant alleged conduct by RP Data and Cordell affected customer behaviour in a market where LeadManager and Cordell Connect were said to be direct competitors, with no other significant competitors. The pleaded case referred to BCI Media Group as the business whose customers and prospective customers were said to have been affected.

The applicant’s Further Amended Statement of Claim relied on confidential annexures as particulars. Those annexures identified customers who allegedly ceased being customers of BCI Media Group, customers who were given discounts, and prospective customers who did not subscribe to LeadManager or instead subscribed to Cordell Connect. The applicant wanted the Court to infer from that customer behaviour, together with other pleaded matters, that the respondents’ conduct had induced those outcomes.

That is what made the annexures important. They were not just background spreadsheets. They were built into the pleaded inferential case. In particular, the reasons show that Confidential Annexures A and C recorded customer cessation information that the applicant relied on to support causation.

The pleading history mattered. Earlier decisions and directions had already required the applicant to provide better particulars. Yates J had said the applicant should provide particulars of the identities of actual and prospective customers known to it who acted in the ways alleged. Later, Registrar Farrell directed the applicant to provide an amended version of Confidential Annexure A identifying, to the best extent it could, the date on which each listed customer ceased to be a customer, with corresponding amendments to Confidential Annexure C.

In August 2025, Needham J had given leave to replead certain paragraphs and to provide a consolidated particulars document. Those orders also allowed an amended consolidated particulars document once the evidence was complete, but only for references to additional documents relied upon. By then, the applicant’s evidence was not yet complete.

That changed when the applicant served further accounting expert reports from Mr Ross, including Ross3 and Ross4 on 19 December 2025. At a case management hearing on 27 February 2026, the Court granted leave to tender Ross3 and Ross4 as evidence in reply and gave the respondents leave to file any response if they considered parts of those reports were really evidence-in-chief. The Court also ordered the applicant to serve amended versions of Confidential Annexures A, B and C to reflect the approach in Ross4.

Ross4 used fuller accounting data from Reckon and Xero. According to the reasons, Mr Ross described the revised annexures as correcting or superseding earlier versions. That was the source of the problem. The revised annexures changed many cessation dates, and the respondents said they had prepared their case for about a year on the basis of the original dates.

The immediate question was whether the applicant should have leave under rule 16.53 of the Federal Court Rules 2011 (Cth) to amend the particulars to the Further Amended Statement of Claim. But the real dispute was narrower and more practical: if the revised annexures were allowed, could the applicant rely on both the original and revised versions as alternatives, or use the original annexures for liability and the revised annexures for quantum only?

The applicant argued that Ross4 went to quantum only and that alternative pathways are not unusual in damages cases. The respondents argued that this was not just a damages update. They said the cessation dates were part of the pleaded inferential case on causation, and that changing them changed the case they had prepared to meet.

Needham J had to decide whether the revised dates were merely part of a loss calculation methodology or whether they were central to the liability case itself. The Court also had to apply the overarching purpose in sections 37M and 37N of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 (Cth), which requires the quick, inexpensive and efficient resolution of disputes according to law.

There was also a separate procedural issue. After the judge had indicated reasons were ready to be delivered, the applicant’s solicitors sent an email proposing a different order. The Court treated that as a unilateral communication on a contested matter and addressed the proper approach under the Central Practice Note.

Needham J granted leave to amend, but only in a limited way. The applicant was allowed to amend the particulars to rely on Revised Confidential Annexures A, B and C appended to Mr Ross’s report of 19 December 2025, in place of the existing Confidential Annexures. That meant the revised annexures replaced the originals. The Court did not allow the applicant to rely on both sets as alternatives.

The Court also refused the later attempt to split the case so that the original annexures would remain for liability while the revised annexures would be used for damages only. The judge held that this distinction did not work on the pleaded case. The cessation dates were central to the applicant’s case because the applicant sought to draw inferences from those dates about whether the respondents’ conduct lured away customers, caused them to cease being customers, caused them to become customers of the respondents, or deterred them from signing up at all.

The reasons note that the respondents said 88 per cent of the particularised customers had altered cessation dates in the revised particulars. The Court accepted that the issue was more than a technical adjustment to a damages model. Mr Ross’s own report used language such as “superseding” and “correcting”, and referred to reviewing customer accounting data to determine whether Confidential Annexures A and C required amendment. That supported the view that the revised annexures reflected a changed factual position based on fuller data, not merely a different way of calculating loss.

Because of that interrelationship between the pleaded inferences and the annexures, the Court held it was not appropriate or fair for the applicant to run different dates for different parts of the case. The respondents were prepared to meet either the original or the revised annexures as the basis of the applicant’s case, but not an internally inconsistent combination of both.

This ruling is a strong reminder that documents, pleadings and expert evidence must tell one coherent story. The Court was not dealing with a minor discrepancy in bookkeeping. It was dealing with customer cessation dates that had already been embedded in the particulars supporting the applicant’s inferential case. Once fuller accounting data from Reckon and Xero produced materially different dates, the applicant could not preserve the old dates for one purpose and the new dates for another without creating unfairness and incoherence.

For businesses, this is what often happens in practice. Sales teams, finance teams and operations teams may each hold different versions of customer history. A CRM may show one date, an accounting system another, and an expert may later reconstruct a third version from invoices or subscription records. If litigation starts before those systems are reconciled, the business can end up pleading facts that later become difficult to maintain.

The judgment also shows the importance of timing. The hearings were due to start less than a month later. The closer a matter gets to trial, the less willing a court will be to accommodate changes that alter the case the other side has prepared to meet. The Court referred back to earlier authority and to its own earlier reasons about amendments that align particulars with evidence not extending to the accommodation of new cases close to trial.

The reasons also contain a practical procedural point that businesses should understand, especially if they are involved in active litigation. After the judge had indicated that reasons were ready to be delivered, the applicant’s solicitors sent an email proposing a different order from the one originally sought. The Court said this was a unilateral communication by way of further submissions when no leave had been granted.

Needham J referred to clause 15.2 of the Central Practice Note: National Court Framework and Case Management. That clause says parties should communicate with chambers only where it is appropriate to do so, and communications must be open and uncontroversial. Where any issue of controversy exists or is likely to arise, communications with chambers must occur only with the prior knowledge or consent of all other parties. The reasons also make clear that simply copying the other side into a communication may not be enough in a contested situation.

The Court acknowledged that the applicant’s solicitor had sought the respondents’ consent before sending the email. Even so, the judge said the more appropriate course would have been to use the liberty to apply and indicate that further submissions on the text of the orders were sought. That would have put each party on notice and avoided placing the respondents in a position where they had to respond to a changed order when the matter was already listed for judgment.

For a business owner, the practical effect is straightforward. If your lawyers need to raise a contested procedural issue, it should usually be done through the proper procedural mechanism, not by an informal late email to chambers. Court communication is part of litigation strategy and risk management, not just administration.

This is not a ruling that decides whether the respondents actually engaged in the alleged conduct. It is a ruling about how the applicant was allowed to present its case. But that makes it highly relevant to businesses because many commercial disputes rise or fall on the quality and consistency of internal records.

If your business is alleging misuse of confidential information, misleading comparisons, customer poaching or lost subscriptions, you need to identify early which records will support the factual theory of the case. If customer cessation dates, discounts or non-subscription decisions are going to be used to support an inference of causation, those records should be tested before they are embedded in pleadings and particulars. Once they are pleaded, later corrections may have consequences well beyond the damages model.

Businesses defending these claims should also read the case carefully. If the other side seeks to revise customer-level data late in the proceeding, this decision shows that the Court will look closely at whether the revision changes the factual case, whether the other side has prepared on a different footing, and whether the proposed amendment is consistent with efficient case management.

The broader commercial lesson is disciplined data governance. Litigation often exposes gaps between operational records and accounting records. The earlier those gaps are identified, the easier it is to avoid procedural fights that consume time, cost and credibility.

This page is based on the published Federal Court reasons in Hubexo Australia Pty Ltd v CoreLogic Australia Pty Ltd (Amendment of Particulars) [2026] FCA 515. The reasons record that judgment was given on 17 March 2026 and the reasons were published on 24 April 2026.

The public reasons are sufficient to explain the procedural ruling, the role of the confidential annexures, the Court’s treatment of customer cessation dates, and the point made about communications with chambers under the Central Practice Note. Because some annexures are confidential and the ruling is procedural, this page should be read as a practical explainer of the amendment decision rather than a full account of the underlying merits dispute.