Australian Agrivision Pty Ltd v Wolstenholme (Vacate Trial)

This was not the final decision on whether the guarantors were liable. It was a procedural ruling made on the first day of a listed Federal Court trial. Australian Agrivision Pty Ltd had sued Tarah Louise Wolstenholme and Alexander Anderson as guarantors of a debt said to be owed by B&T Investment Group (ACT) Pty Ltd, which was already in liquidation.

That commercial setting matters. Guarantee claims often sit alongside other disputes and pressure points, including insolvency investigations, family law disputes, and attempts to obtain records from lenders or other third parties. But the Court’s task on 9 February 2026 was much narrower. It had to decide whether a trial that had been fixed for months should now be vacated at the request of one of the respondents.

The timing was central. The proceeding had been on foot since October 2024. The trial dates had been fixed on 18 July 2025 for hearing on 9 and 10 February 2026. Yet Mr Anderson’s application to vacate those dates was only filed on Friday 6 February 2026, the last business day before trial, and was argued on the Monday morning when the hearing was due to start.

The judge also noted that this was not the first attempt to delay or reshape the case. An earlier application to stay the proceeding because of Family Court litigation had been dismissed in April 2025. A later application to amend the defence and add a cross-claim had been dismissed in December 2025 because it came too late and would imperil the trial dates. That history formed part of the background against which the fresh application was assessed.

Mr Anderson’s essential argument was that he was unprepared for trial. He was appearing in person, did not have legal qualifications, and said he had been overwhelmed by concurrent Family Court proceedings and other matters. Stewart J expressly acknowledged that a litigant in person is naturally disadvantaged.

The judgment also records a change in legal representation. A solicitor had come on the record in September 2025, but on 29 January 2026 Mr Anderson resumed acting for himself. The judge said it was unexplained what the solicitor had been instructed to do during that period or why the retainer ended. The Court accepted that Mr Anderson may have been disadvantaged by things that perhaps should have been done and were not done, but the reasons for that situation were unclear.

Beyond general lack of readiness, Mr Anderson raised four more specific matters. First, he said there were concurrent Family Court proceedings involving overlapping parties, properties and financial issues arising from the same transactions. Secondly, he pointed to insolvency processes involving the principal debtor in liquidation, including possible recovery action by the liquidator that might reduce the debt. Thirdly, he said the liquidator’s processes, including any public examination, might uncover evidence relevant to the Federal Court case. Fourthly, he referred to requests for documents from the principal lender under Australian Privacy Principles 12 and 13 and said the respondents could be prejudiced if those records were not received in time.

He also complained about two affidavits served by the applicant on Saturday 7 February 2026, shortly before the trial. One dealt with the amount of the principal debt outstanding and the calculation of interest. The other sought to correct aspects of an earlier affidavit about the circumstances of arranging a meeting connected with the property transaction and the lender.

The legal question was not whether the debt was owed or whether the guarantees were enforceable. The immediate issue was whether the Court should vacate long-set trial dates on the first day of hearing.

In practical terms, the Court had to weigh fairness to a self-represented litigant against the orderly conduct of a commercial proceeding that had already been prepared for trial. That involved asking whether the matters raised by Mr Anderson showed a real present unfairness that made it inappropriate to proceed, or whether they were matters that had already been dealt with, were speculative, or could be managed through the Court’s own procedures.

The judgment shows several recurring themes in that assessment. One was timing: how long the case had been on foot and how long the parties had known the trial dates. Another was procedural alternatives: whether subpoenas or other evidence-gathering steps could have been used earlier. Another was materiality: whether the documents or future events relied on were shown to be relevant to a specific defence. And another was case management: whether any prejudice from late evidence could be handled in a narrower way than vacating the whole hearing.

That is an important lens for businesses. Courts do not ask only whether a party would prefer more time. They ask whether justice actually requires the listed hearing to be postponed, taking into account the history of the case and the tools already available within the proceeding.

Stewart J dismissed the application to vacate the trial dates and ordered that Mr Anderson pay the costs of that application. The trial was to proceed.

The judge’s central reasoning was that there had been plenty of time to prepare. The proceeding had been on foot since October 2024. The trial had been fixed since July 2025. The last affidavit evidence under the pre-trial schedule had been filed in July 2025. In the Court’s view, there had been ample time to get ready for hearing and to issue subpoenas or take other steps to obtain documents or information if that was required.

On the Family Court point, the judge said this was essentially the same issue that had already been dealt with in the earlier stay application. No new issue arose. The Court did not accept that progress in the Federal Court matter would prejudice the Family Court proceeding in a way that justified putting off the trial.

On the liquidation point, the Court accepted that the liquidator apparently intended to take recovery action against certain parties and that any successful recovery could reduce the principal debt. But that possibility was described as speculative and potentially slow to materialise. In any event, if the principal debt were later reduced, the guarantors would receive that benefit because any amount recoverable against them would reduce accordingly.

On the possibility that insolvency processes might uncover useful evidence, the Court said that possibility existed but was not a basis to delay the hearing. The Federal Court has its own processes for obtaining relevant evidence to defend a claim. The judge also said he failed to see any real risk of inconsistent findings between the contemplated insolvency processes and the proceeding before him.

On the requests for lender documents under Australian Privacy Principles 12 and 13, the Court said any relevant records could have been obtained by subpoena in the proceeding. The judge acknowledged that Mr Anderson felt overwhelmed and may have felt let down by a solicitor not issuing subpoenas, but said that was still not a ground to postpone the case when there had been plenty of opportunity to seek relevant documents through the Court’s own processes. The Court also noted there was no indication of what defence those records would support.

As for the two late affidavits served by the applicant, the Court treated any prejudice as something that could be managed during the trial. The affidavit dealing with the debt calculation might not be admitted, or the issues it raised might be dealt with later. The shorter corrective affidavit could also be dealt with in the trial, and if it created prejudice that could not be cured, the Court might refuse to allow it to be read. Those possibilities meant there was no sufficient reason to vacate a hearing that had been listed for so long.

This case is a strong reminder that procedural discipline matters in commercial litigation. A business may be dealing with several disputes at once, including insolvency issues, family law disputes involving owners, lender record requests, or changes in legal representation. But the Court will usually expect the listed case to move forward unless there is a specific and immediate reason it cannot fairly do so.

If your business is defending a debt or guarantee claim, do not assume that a liquidator’s future work, a possible public examination, or a pending request for records will justify delaying the hearing. The Court may say that those matters are speculative, that any later debt reduction will be reflected in the amount recoverable anyway, and that relevant evidence should have been pursued through subpoenas or other court processes in time.

The decision is also useful for parties who genuinely feel unprepared. It suggests some practical steps that should be considered before a last-minute adjournment application is made. Identify exactly what evidence is missing. Explain what defence or issue that evidence goes to. Use the Court’s compulsory processes early. If the other side serves evidence late, think about narrower remedies such as objecting to admissibility, asking for time within the hearing to respond, or seeking directions about how the issue will be managed. Courts are more likely to respond to a targeted procedural problem than to a broad claim that the whole trial should be vacated.

For guarantors and directors, another practical point is that proceedings against guarantors can continue even while the principal debtor is in liquidation. The mere fact that a liquidator may later recover funds does not necessarily stop the creditor from pressing the guarantee claim now.

The judgment was delivered by Stewart J on 9 February 2026 in the Federal Court of Australia. It was an ex tempore judgment revised from transcript. The ruling concerns only the interlocutory application to vacate the trial dates. It does not resolve the final merits of the underlying guarantee dispute.

That means this page should be read as a procedural case note. It is most useful for understanding how the Court approaches late adjournment or vacate-trial applications in a commercial setting, especially where a party points to self-representation, parallel proceedings, insolvency processes, or late-served evidence.