MELBOURNE — The Federal Court of Australia held Monday that a 2024 deed of release between former law lecturer Benjamen Gussen and Swinburne University of Technology is valid and enforceable, resolving a threshold issue across several employment-related proceedings.
Justice Catherine Bennett answered a separate legal question common to four matters. The university had relied on the deed as a bar to claims against it; Gussen, who represented himself, argued that the agreement was invalid, vitiated or otherwise unavailable to Swinburne.
A single question across multiple cases
The proceedings involved Swinburne, the National Tertiary Education Union, education regulators and other parties. Because different judges were managing the cases, the court isolated the deed’s validity for determination in one hearing.
Justice Bennett concluded that no factor invalidated the agreement and that it could be enforced according to its terms in proceedings VID 250/2025, VID 1296/2025 and VID 1509/2025. The matters will return to their assigned judges for case management, with one listed for Oct. 28. Costs remain to be decided.
Why the ruling matters
Release deeds are intended to create finality, but their effect depends on ordinary principles of contract formation and construction. A party may still argue that an agreement was procured by misleading conduct, mistake, duress or another vitiating factor, or that its text does not extend to a later claim.
The judgment does not decide every dispute among the parties. It decides the preliminary point that will now shape which claims can continue and against whom.
Why courts isolate a separate question
When several proceedings turn on the same threshold issue, deciding that issue once can prevent inconsistent rulings and unnecessary evidence. Here, the validity of the deed determined whether claims against Swinburne could move forward across different dockets.
The procedure narrows litigation without deciding matters that do not depend on the deed. Claims involving other respondents, questions outside the release and remaining case-management issues may still require separate attention.
How a release is tested
A deed is interpreted objectively, using its text, context and the transaction it was intended to settle. A person who signs is generally bound even if they later regret the bargain. But a release may be set aside or confined where there is misleading conduct, mistake, duress, unconscionability or another recognized defect.
Scope is distinct from validity. A valid deed may release named claims, claims arising from specified facts or even claims not yet pleaded, depending on its language. Courts are cautious about reading general words as surrendering rights the parties could not reasonably have had in mind.
Employment disputes add a public-law dimension because some statutory obligations cannot simply be contracted away. A settlement can resolve a claim and allocate risk, but it cannot authorize future unlawful conduct or erase rights that legislation makes non-excludable.
What the decision changes
Swinburne can now rely on the deed according to its terms in the identified proceedings. The relevant docket judges must apply that conclusion to the individual pleadings and decide which parts, if any, remain outside the bar.
The judgment also illustrates the value of drafting a settlement with precision. Parties should identify the disputes being resolved, the parties protected, the treatment of unknown claims and any continuing obligations. Ambiguity can turn an agreement intended to end litigation into a new round of litigation about the agreement itself.
What remains open
Costs of the separate-question hearing have not been finally allocated, and further case management will determine the path of the proceedings. The ruling supplies finality on one central issue, not necessarily on every controversy among the parties.
