There’s news from the Galápagos Islands Division of the Law of Torts.

Earlier this month Judge Robert Cameron in the FCFC handed down an award of aggravated defamation damages of $30,000 to each of two Sydney businessmen over an email sent in 2017 to two colleagues by an estranged business partner, plus a top-up of $7,000 in interest per head.

Welcome to Sarina v O’Shannassy. It took seven-and-a-half years and three judges before damages were finalised.

John O’Shannassy sent the email to two fellow directors of the Fleur de Vie, a spring water bottling company, following a dispute over his loan of $35,000 to Clinton Sarina, made at the request of another director, Martin Green.

The defamatory stuff related to allegations that Sarina and Green have a “nefarious nature” and were involved in fraud – allegations that could not be sustained at the trial.

It had also been reported that Sarina had been a confidant of Michael McGurk, the colourful murdered Sydney standover man and property developer.

In March 2019 Judge Nicholas Manousaridis in the FCFC was grappling with claims by Sarina and Green in consumer law and defamation. The defamation claims survived, with the ACL claims being tossed out.

Prior to that, Sarina had brought his claim against O’Shannassy in two courts at the same time – the Circuit Court and the District Court of NSW. There were doubts about the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court to hear defamation cases – but once that issue was decided, the plaintiff withdrew from the District Court and the defendant was awarded indemnity costs by Judge Judith Gibson.

In October 2020 Judge Manousaridis dismissed Sarina and Green’s defamation claim on grounds of triviality and the unlikelihood that the email caused the applicants to suffer any harm.

On appeal, Justice Steven Rares in November 2021 thought the defamation was not trivial, and even though he liked splashing around great wads of damages in other cases (Rodrick David v Charif and Adam Kazal $1.35 million; $675,000 against Google for former NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro; $590,000 against the ABC and Fairfax for Chau Chak Wing), here it was obvious that the damages could only be modest, particularly as no economic loss was involved.

Instead of deciding the damages himself, Rares remitted that operation to the FCFC, where it hovered for the next four years.

Rares decision also set off another bust of litigation. In April 2022, O’Shannassy filed a debtors petition and became bankrupt. He went to Justice Angus Stewart in the FCA with a submission that damages for defamation that are awaiting assessment are not a debt provable in bankruptcy.

In August 2024, Stewart J disagreed and dismissed the appeal.

It took another 14 months for Judge Cameron to come up with his damages decision, assessed on the papers.

There was an earlier round in which Clive Evatt, for Sarina, sued Fairfax Media, only to have Geoffrey Flick dismiss it. That was reversed on appeal by the Full Feds.

There had been an earlier $75,000 settlement in February 2016 for an online article published by Fairfax Digital (McGurk’s confidants have colourful pasts) – but the Fulls thought the deed of settlement didn’t cover two other articles published in 2009 and 2010 by the related entity Fairfax Media – with headlines The jockey, the boxer and the money men and McGurk duo linked to $150m loan fraud.

It’s difficult to image that the “successful” parties made any money out of this time consuming adventure.

Give it some choke

It’s my unhappy duty to report that Judge Catherine Symons of the FCFC is still dawdling in the slow lane.

Last month in a Fair Work case we clocked her travelling six times more slowly than the court ordained delivery speed – Ponte v Greater National Holdings Pty Ltd (No 2). That judgment appeared after 19 months of kerbside crawl.

We see that this month in another Fair Work case, Dimitropoulos v South Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network Ltd, she changed down to first gear and arrived at a result in 20 months – a hearing on February 5-7, 2024 with the reasons on October 8, 2025.

She needs to give it a bit of choke before engaging the clutch.

Nonetheless, a bouquet is in order as this is speedier than the two years she spent deciding a costs issue in HPZP v Minister for Home Affairs.