Skip to main content
22/08/2023 - 15:16

Caratti fails in costs appeal bid

22/08/2023 - 15:16

Bookmark

Save articles for future reference.

A John Caratti-controlled company has failed to quash a costs order to pay some of major grain farmer Giovanni ‘John’ Nicoletti’s legal fees in the Federal Court.

Caratti fails in costs appeal bid
John Caratti's Harvard Nominees has failed in its appeal of a costs ruling in the federal court.

A John Caratti-controlled company has failed to quash a costs order to pay some of major grain farmer Giovanni ‘John’ Nicoletti’s legal fees in the Federal Court.

The full Federal Court bench, being Justices Craig Colvin, Angus Stewart, and Michael Feutrill, today dismissed Harvard Nominees' appeal of a costs ruling in December where Justice Darren Jackson ordered it to pay 10 per cent of Mr Nicoletti’s legal costs.

Mr Caratti took Mr Nicoletti, Esperance farmer Simon Tiller, and company Dimension Agriculture to court over a dispute with leases entered by the parties.

Harvard Nominees subleased its Warriup and Horick farms to Mr Tiller and Dimension Agriculture sometime before January 2019 but Mr Caratti did not know Mr Nicoletti was involved with Dimension, according to a previous court judgment.

According a judgment delivered by Justice Jackson in December, Mr Caratti did not want to enter into a lease arrangement with Mr Nicoletti, who he believed was associated with his brother Allen Caratti, a person he “bore a great deal of animosity” towards.

Justice Jackson found Mr Tiller has engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct by hiding the fact that Mr Nicoletti became the director and owner of Dimension Agriculture.

Mr Caratti’s company was entitled to $2 million in damages from Esperance farmer Simon Tiller and Dimension Agriculture in a legal battle over leases of Warriup and Horick farms, Justice Jackson found.

However, Justice Jackson ordered Mr Caratti to pay 10 per cent of Mr Nicoletti’s costs of proceedings after ruling that the latter’s conduct did not contribute to Mr Caratti’s loss.

Dimension Agriculture went into liquidation after the December judgment.

Harvard Nominees had appealed the costs order, claiming Mr Nicoletti had been responsible and that Justice Jackson adopted an incorrect legal approach in his decision.

The full bench today upheld Justice Jackson’s decision, finding Mr Caratti’s ground of appeal was not sufficiently arguable.

“Rather, the case for Harvard was to the effect that Mr Nicoletti's conduct as a director of Dimension was relevant to who should pay the costs of Mr Nicoletti's successful defence of the claim brought against him by Harvard,” the judgment said.

“The fundamental problem with that case was that it was Harvard who brought about those costs by seeking to demonstrate independent personal liability on the part of Mr Nicoletti

“It was not Mr Nicoletti's conduct as a director of Dimension that led to those costs. 

“Harvard failed in its claim against Mr Nicoletti to a sufficient extent that the primary judge considered it was appropriate that Mr Nicoletti should be awarded 10 per cent of the respondents' costs.”

Mr Caratti also failed an appeal against Justice Jackson’s order to pay 25 per cent of Damian Bryce’s, a director of Dimension, legal costs from the earlier proceedings.

X