Question 1

I’ve just been handed injunction papers - what do the documents actually mean?

Accepted Answer

Typically a bundle with three jobs: the ORIGINATING documents starting the case against you; the NOTICE OF MOTION telling you what orders are sought and - critically - WHEN: the return date, which on short service can be days away; and the GROUNDING AFFIDAVIT with exhibits - the sworn story the application stands on, which repays careful reading because its gaps, exaggerations and omissions are your defence’s raw material. If an INTERIM ORDER was already made ex parte, it binds you NOW even though you weren’t heard - compliance is not optional while you prepare the challenge. First three actions: diary every date, breach nothing, and get the full bundle to a solicitor today - the timeline is built for speed and so must the response be.

Question 2

Can I just ignore it if the claims are nonsense?

Accepted Answer

No - emphatically: injunction procedure is built to proceed, and non-engagement converts weak applications into orders. Miss the return date and orders can be made in your absence on the applicant’s version alone; breach an existing interim order because you consider it unfounded and you’re in contempt territory - where the merits of the underlying dispute won’t save you, and where courts respond severely. The strength of your defence is an argument to be MADE, at the hearing, on evidence: nonsense claims get dismantled by replying affidavits and cross-arguments, not by absence. The system genuinely rewards engagement - respondents who turn up with evidence do well against applicants who oversold - and punishes the empty chair.

Question 3

What are “undertakings in lieu” and when should I offer them?

Accepted Answer

The respondent’s pressure valve: instead of fighting the interim order, you can offer the court undertakings - promises to hold position on specified matters until the hearing - which often makes the urgent application unnecessary while conceding nothing on the merits. Well-judged undertakings can be strategic gold: they defuse the emergency (and the applicant’s momentum), avoid an interim hearing fought on the applicant’s chosen ground, buy time to build the real defence, and read as reasonableness when costs are later weighed. Badly judged ones give away freedom the court might never have taken. The drafting is everything - scope, duration, carve-outs - and it’s solicitor’s work, not something conceded in a corridor.

Question 4

The order was made ex parte, without me - can it be overturned?

Accepted Answer

This is the discharge jurisdiction, and it has real teeth: ex parte applicants owe the court FULL AND FRANK DISCLOSURE - everything material, including what damaged their application - because the judge decided with one voice in the room. Where the affidavit that got the order concealed material facts, mischaracterised the dispute, or omitted the correspondence that told the other side’s story, discharge for material non-disclosure can be sought - and orders obtained by non-disclosure can fall regardless of whether they might have been granted on full candour, with costs consequences for the applicant. The respondent’s work: line up the true record against the grounding affidavit and identify precisely what the court was never told. It is among the most effective weapons in the defending arsenal.

Question 5

What’s my costs exposure - and my costs opportunity - as a respondent?

Accepted Answer

Both are real: injunction applications carry genuine costs exposure for whoever loses them, and interim skirmishes generate their own costs orders - which is why proportionate strategy matters and why undertakings sometimes beat battles. But respondents hold opportunities applicants forget: successful resistance typically carries costs; discharge for non-disclosure carries costs consequences; the applicant’s undertaking as to damages stands behind your interim losses if their injunction proves wrongly granted (document those losses from day one); and fortification applications test whether their promise has money behind it. The defending posture that wins: full compliance with existing orders, aggressive and organised challenge through the proper channels, and every reasonable offer made in writing - the record that wins hearings also wins the costs arguments after them.

Defending an Injunction

The First 48 Hours: Comply, Diary, Prepare

The Arsenal: Undertakings, Discharge, the Test, the Costs

Papers in Hand, Clock Running?

Related Reading

Defending an Injunction - FAQs