Nikolic v Twitter International Company

Nikolic v Twitter International Company [2026] FCA 90 sits at the end of a long-running dispute about allegedly defamatory material on X. The applicants were Mr Goran Nikolic and his company, Idaz09 Pty Ltd. The respondent was Twitter International Company, an Irish company.

The commercial background matters. In 2019, the applicants sued in the Supreme Court of Victoria over tweets published in about 2017 from two unauthorised handles that they said falsely suggested an association with them. That earlier case settled in July 2021. Under the settlement, Twitter was to pay money and transfer the relevant handles. The agreement did not require Twitter to remove the tweets, and it included a broad release of claims connected with the earlier proceeding and the defamation allegations.

After settlement, the applicants complained that replies to those tweets were still visible on the platform. They then started a new Federal Court proceeding in September 2021. They sought orders affecting the settlement agreement, removal of certain replies or similar material, and equitable compensation.

From there, the dispute became dominated by threshold issues rather than the underlying complaint. The Court had to deal with whether the Irish respondent had been validly served, whether the Federal Court had jurisdiction, whether the settlement already barred the claims, whether the claim was out of time, and whether the applicants could revive a challenge to earlier procedural orders after missing the review deadline.

The sequence of events is important because the 2026 judgment was not the first major decision in the matter.

First, the applicants filed the Federal Court proceeding on 6 September 2021. They emailed the originating documents to Thomson Geer. Thomson Geer responded that it did not hold instructions to act in the Federal Court proceeding and pointed out that service on the foreign respondent had not been effected in accordance with the Rules.

Second, both sides filed interlocutory applications. The applicants sought confirmation of service outside Australia and interlocutory relief. The respondent sought to set aside the originating application or alternatively obtain a declaration that it had not been properly served.

Third, the matter was referred to a Judicial Registrar. On 22 November 2022, the Registrar found that the originating application had not been duly served on the respondent as a foreign company. The Registrar also found more fundamental problems with the proceeding, including lack of federal jurisdiction, no prima facie case for the relief sought, the effect of the settlement agreement, and limitation issues. The Registrar set aside the originating application. On 14 December 2022, the Registrar fixed costs against the applicants in a lump sum.

Fourth, the applicants did not seek review of those Registrar orders within the 21-day period required by the Rules. Instead, they filed an extension application on 4 April 2023 under r 1.39 so they could seek review out of time under s 35A(5) of the Federal Court of Australia Act.

Fifth, the primary judge heard the extension application and related interlocutory matters on 28 February 2025. On 10 April 2025, the primary judge refused the extension. The judge gave two cumulative reasons: the delay was not adequately explained, and the proposed review lacked sufficient merit.

Sixth, the applicants sought leave to appeal from that refusal. Because the primary judge’s decision was interlocutory, leave was required under s 24(1A). They also filed a separate interlocutory application alleging that the respondent’s solicitors, Mr Quill and Ms McGeoch, had a conflict of interest and should be restrained from acting and referred to the Legal Services Commissioner.

The 2026 judgment by O’Bryan J dealt with those two applications together. Both were dismissed, and the applicants were ordered to pay the respondent’s costs.

The Court dealt with two distinct questions.

The first was whether the applicants should receive leave to appeal from the primary judge’s refusal to grant an extension of time. The Court restated the usual principles for leave to appeal from an interlocutory judgment. In general, an applicant must show sufficient doubt about the correctness of the decision to justify reconsideration and substantial injustice if leave is refused, assuming the decision is wrong. The Court also emphasised that appellate interference is kept on a tight rein where the decision concerns practice and procedure rather than substantive rights.

That issue was even narrower because the primary judge’s decision was discretionary. The Court therefore approached the matter through the familiar limits on appeals from discretionary decisions. It was not enough that another judge might have exercised the discretion differently. The applicants needed to show error of the kind described in House v The King, such as acting on a wrong principle, taking irrelevant matters into account, failing to consider a material matter, mistaking the facts, or reaching an unreasonable or plainly unjust result.

The second question was whether the respondent’s solicitors should be restrained from acting because of an alleged conflict of interest, prior retainer, possession of confidential information, non-disclosure, or personal interest in costs. The Court treated those allegations seriously, but the practical issue was straightforward: was there evidence to support them?

Justice O’Bryan dismissed both applications.

On the leave application, the Court held that the applicants had demonstrated no error in the primary judge’s refusal to extend time. The primary judge had found that the delay was not adequately explained and that the proposed review lacked sufficient merit. The 2026 judgment records both reasons and does not disturb them.

On delay, the only explanation put forward was that Mr Nikolic had tested positive for COVID-19 in December 2022. The primary judge had accepted that the applicants were self-represented and that some understanding may be afforded around slippage of deadlines. Even so, the material did not explain the severity of symptoms, why they prevented filing within the 21-day period, or the full 16-week delay. The Court did not identify appealable error in that reasoning.

On merits, the primary judge had found there was no evidence of valid service in accordance with the Rules and, more significantly, that the claim had been fully compromised by the settlement agreement. The settlement covered all allegations and claims of injury or damage arising from the tweets or any republication or related publication, or any facts, circumstances or matters relating to the tweets or the unauthorised handles. The primary judge accepted that the respondent would be entitled to plead the settlement as a complete and effective bar. The 2026 judgment records that conclusion and leaves it undisturbed.

On the conflict application, the Court accepted the respondent’s submissions and dismissed the allegations as utterly baseless. The applicants had filed written submissions but no evidence. By contrast, the respondent relied on an affidavit from Mr Quill. He deposed that he had never acted for the applicants, never taken instructions from them, and did not possess their confidential information. The affidavit annexed correspondence from 2018 showing that he had been acting for Nationwide News Pty Ltd in response to a complaint by the applicants to that publisher. During the hearing, Mr Nikolic confirmed that this correspondence was the basis for his allegation that Mr Quill had advised the applicants. The Court rejected that characterisation.

The Court also rejected the suggestion that the solicitors’ involvement in other proceedings brought by the applicants, or their role in pursuing costs for the respondent, created a disqualifying conflict. The orders made were that the leave application be dismissed, the interlocutory application be dismissed, and the applicants pay the respondent’s costs of both applications.

Several documents and procedural steps shaped the outcome.

The settlement agreement was central. The Court recorded that it required payment and transfer of the handles, but not removal of the tweets. It also contained a broad release. That wording mattered because the later Federal Court claim was framed around replies to the tweets remaining accessible. The Court treated the release as broad enough to be a complete bar to the claims the applicants were trying to pursue.

The service correspondence also mattered. When the applicants emailed the originating documents to Thomson Geer, the firm responded that it did not hold instructions in the Federal Court proceeding and explained the requirements for service on a foreign company. That correspondence made it difficult to argue later that service had been validly effected simply because the documents had reached lawyers who had acted in the earlier Supreme Court matter.

The Registrar’s findings were significant because they were not limited to service. The Registrar found no due service, no federal jurisdiction for the pleaded claims, no prima facie case, and a likely limitation problem because the publications dated from 2017. That meant the applicants were not trying to revive a single technical point. They were trying to reopen a proceeding already found to have multiple fundamental defects.

The explanation for delay was too thin. The Court accepted that self-represented litigants may be given some latitude, but still required evidence explaining why the review application could not be filed on time. A bare reference to COVID-19 in December 2022 did not explain the whole delay.

The conflict allegations failed because they were not proved. The applicants alleged prior advice, prior retainer, confidential information, non-disclosure, and improper financial incentives. But they filed no evidence. The respondent filed affidavit evidence directly answering those allegations. In a conflict application, that imbalance is usually fatal.

For business owners, the first lesson is to settle precisely. If the commercial objective is removal of online content, transfer of accounts, deletion of replies, correction of statements, or future moderation obligations, those steps need to be stated expressly. A court will usually start with the text of the settlement, not with one party’s later understanding of what should have happened.

The second lesson is to treat foreign service as a technical gateway issue. If the respondent is incorporated overseas, valid service may require compliance with specific methods under the Rules, the law of the foreign country, or an applicable convention. Informal notice may not be enough.

The third lesson is to move quickly after an adverse procedural order. Review and appeal periods can be short. If illness or another event causes delay, keep records that explain dates, severity, and practical impact. Courts may show some flexibility, but they still need evidence and a coherent explanation.

The fourth lesson is about evidence. Businesses sometimes feel strongly that the other side’s lawyers have acted improperly, especially where there has been earlier correspondence or related disputes. But a court will not restrain solicitors from acting on the basis of suspicion. You need evidence of the prior retainer or relationship, the confidential information said to be at risk, and the reason continued acting would be improper.

The fifth lesson is to keep this case in proportion. It does not create a new legal test. It is better read as an illustration of procedural pitfalls. The applicants’ position was weakened by a broad settlement release, service defects, delay, and unsupported allegations. Those are practical litigation problems that any business can avoid with careful drafting, deadline management and evidence preparation.

Two practical points stand out from the procedural history.

First, limitation and service issues can often be explained simply. The publications were said to date from 2017. The Registrar noted that the proceeding was filed well outside the relevant limitation period and that the material did not suggest any basis for extension. Separately, because the respondent was an Irish company, the applicants needed to serve the proceeding using one of the permitted methods for foreign service. The Registrar found they had not done so. For a business reader, the message is that old claims and overseas defendants both require early procedural planning.

Second, the relationship between the different decisions matters. The Registrar made the first adverse findings in 2022. The primary judge in 2025 did not finally retry all of those issues. Instead, the judge decided whether time should be extended so the applicants could seek review of the Registrar’s orders. The 2026 judgment then asked an even narrower question: whether there was enough doubt about the primary judge’s discretionary refusal to justify an appeal. That layered procedural history helps explain why the applicants faced such a high hurdle by 2026.

This page is based on the Federal Court judgment in Nikolic v Twitter International Company [2026] FCA 90, together with the procedural history recorded in those reasons. The judgment states that the application for leave to appeal and the interlocutory application alleging conflict of interest were both dismissed with costs.

The published text available for review is truncated near the end of the reasons. The key orders, background facts, legal principles and findings relevant to a business explainer are, however, clearly recorded in the available text.