RE: Appeal deadline - final hours9 Jun 2026 05:18
No, not in the sense of a formal court requirement.
The defendants do not have to lodge an "application to settle."
Settlement can happen:
Informally between lawyers.
Through negotiations.
Through mediation.
Through offers made under the relevant court rules.
In fact, most settlements occur without any special application being filed.
What the court may do at Case Conferences is:
encourage ADR (alternative dispute resolution),
ask whether settlement discussions have taken place,
direct parties to consider mediation.
But that's different from requiring a settlement application.
In your GST/Semnet context, if the defendants wanted to reopen discussions, they could simply have their lawyers contact Semnet's lawyers and start negotiating again. The court might never know until a settlement is reached.