New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments | LexChat

Topic

Discretionary trust distributions

Legal area

Court

12 Jul 2016

CRUMMER TRUSTEES NO.83 LIMITED v BANK OF NEW ZEALAND AND ORS [2016] NZHC 1539

Citation

[2016] NZHC 1539
Court

High Court

The Court concluded there was reason to believe Crummer would be unable to pay BNZ's costs if unsuccessful because Crummer has no assets other than a disputed and discretionary entitlement to trust distributions, the plaintiff's claims against BNZ are dependent on success against other defendants and therefore uncertain, and the balance of factors favoured protecting the defendant from being drawn into potentially unjustified, costly litigation; accordingly security for costs was ordered in the sum of NZD 50,000 payable into Court in two tranches.
22 Jun 2016

ROBERTS v HENDERSON [2016] NZHC 1363

Citation

[2016] NZHC 1363
Court

High Court

The High Court dismissed the appeal: s44 did not apply because the disposition to the husband did not defeat any claim or right Ms Roberts had under the Act (she had no claim against the settlor trustees) and the distribution was received in good faith; s9A(2) did not apply because the $1,800,000 crystallised as the husband's separate property on distribution and there was no subsequent increase in value attributable to the wife that would convert it to relationship property.