Civil and Commercial Litigation

The first question in a commercial dispute is not whether you would win. It is whether you could ever collect.

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In short

Civil claims in Queensland are heard in QCAT, the Magistrates, District or Supreme Court depending on the amount claimed. Winning is not the end of the exercise: costs recovery is partial rather than complete, enforcing a judgment is a separate process from obtaining one, and a defendant’s insolvency can render a judgment worthless. Recoverability should be assessed before proceedings are commenced.

Section 8

Civil and commercial litigation

Civil proceedings in the Queensland Supreme, District and Magistrates Courts run under the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 1999. Insolvency and corporate claims sit largely in Commonwealth legislation — the Corporations Act 2001 and the Bankruptcy Act 1966 — and limitation periods come from the Limitation of Actions Act 1974 (Qld).

Costs recovery is partial, and only as good as the debtor

A successful party is often awarded costs, but an order on the applicable scale rarely covers what was actually paid. The Supreme, District and Land Court scale of costs was last updated on 1 July 2024, aligned to the federal scales by reference to movements in the consumer price index and wage price index.^[20]

Enforcement is a separate exercise from judgment

Charging orders and stop orders are enforcement tools that secure or freeze a judgment debtor's interests in property. They have been available through the Supreme Court; the 2026 Bill proposes extending them to the District and Magistrates Courts so a judgment creditor does not need a separate higher-court application.^[20]

The first question is recoverability

A judgment against a company with no assets and no trading income has cost you money to obtain and returns nothing. Merits, cost to judgment, recoverable costs and the debtor's capacity to pay all belong in the same assessment, at the start.

Insolvency changes the questions

Where a debtor is genuinely insolvent, statutory demands, voidable preferences, insolvent trading and directors' duties become the live issues — and timing becomes critical, because recovery actions and defences both run to statutory periods.

Common questions

If I win my case, do I get all my legal costs back?

Generally no. Costs recovery in Queensland civil litigation is partial. A successful party is usually entitled to costs assessed on the standard basis, which recovers a proportion of what was actually spent rather than the whole of it. The shortfall is real and should be factored into any decision about whether litigation is worth commencing.

Is obtaining a judgment the same as getting paid?

No. A judgment is a declaration that you are owed the money; enforcing it is a separate exercise with its own steps and costs, such as enforcement warrants, garnishee proceedings or examinations. If the defendant has no recoverable assets, a judgment can be worth very little, which is why assessing recoverability before commencing proceedings is the single most valuable step in a commercial dispute.

Sources

Reviewed 26 August 2026

The bracketed numbers in this article refer to the master numbered source list on the Knowledge Hub, which is maintained in one place so a citation cannot fall out of step between pages. Every source is an official primary source: Queensland and Commonwealth legislation, the courts, or the relevant regulator.