The media release issued yesterday by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission requires clarification.
Mr Peter Foster will not be "asked to explain" why he should not surrender his passport and no order for "forfeiture" of his passport has been sought.
The ACCC has sought interim order, that is orders pending the final hearing, that Mr Foster be restrained from leaving Australia and deliver his passport to the Federal Court.
These orders are considered by the ACCC to be necessary to ensure Mr Foster's compliance with orders for pecuniary penalties that it believes it will obtain in the principal proceedings before Justice Drummond.
Justice Spender declined to make the interim orders sought by the ACCC without hearing from Mr Foster and set the matter down for further mention at 10.15 a.m. on Monday 3 February 2003.
As to the orders concerning Mr Foster's passport, Justice Spender indicated a preliminary view that he was "far from satisfied" that section 23 of the Federal Court Act (the basis argued by the ACCC) gave him the power to make those orders.