FCT v Runcity Pty Ltd [2025] FCAFC 152
It was argued a consent order made under a general power to extend time for company reinstatement was invalid because specific voidable transaction provisions were the only way to extend time10.
This raised, among other things, the Anthony Hordern principle, and whether the general power to make ‘any other order’ was subject to time limits in the specific power11. As the court explained, however, the Anthony Hordern principle ‘is not an analytical straitjacket’. It is ‘but one way’ of asking if the statute ‘confers only one power to take the relevant action’12. The court held this to be the case with the result that the consent order was invalid.
This principle is from Episode 128 of interpretation NOW!
Footnotes:
10 ss 601AH(3)(d) & 588FF(3)(b) Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) resp.
11 Pearce [4.67-4.68], BDM [18.11] generally, cf Episode 121.
12 Plaintiff M70 [2011] HCA 32 [50], Nystrom [2006] HCA 50 [59].