Meat Board wins Privy Council appeal

Meat Board wins Privy Council appeal

27th July 2004

The New Zealand Meat Board and the Meat Industry Association (MIA) have been successful with their appeals to the Privy Council to have a Judgment against them overturned.

The decision by the Privy Council overturns an earlier Court of Appeal ruling that the Board and the MIA were liable to pay damages of at least $2 million to two companies over the allocation of meat quota in the mid 1990’s. With an inquiry into further damages ordered, the final liability was likely to have been several million dollars more.

Meat Board Chairman Jeff Grant says he is satisfied with the Privy Council’s decision.

“We were very surprised when the High Court decided against the Board, and while the Court of Appeal put right many of the errors made, they still found we had a significant liability to Paramount Exports Limited and Ronnick Commodities Limited.”

“Coming away from the hearing we were reasonably confident of a successful outcome, but after the disappointments of the earlier decisions we didn’t want to get our hopes up prematurely. The Privy Council decision is a pleasing conclusion to the matter for us.”

The case against the Board and MIA was originally brought by Ronnick Commodities Limited and Paramount Exports Limited over a decision made in 1994, to change the way that the European sheepmeat quota was allocated. Both companies claimed that they had been unfairly disadvantaged by the change, and that the loss of quota had caused their related businesses to fail.

ENDS

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