New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments | LexChat

Topic

Independent counsel process

Legal area

Court

3 Mar 2022

METLIFECARE RETIREMENT VILLAGES LIMITED v JAMES HARDIE NEW ZEALAND LIMITED [2022] NZHC 351

Citation

[2022] NZHC 351
Court

High Court

The Court applied the default rule that costs follow the event while making targeted departures based on conduct and complexity: where a party prevailed on a discrete interlocutory step it received scale costs (2B/3B); complex affidavit preparation justified awarding time band C for that step; agreed Independent Counsel processes did not, by themselves, attract costs awards; and where a party unduly prolonged or complicated the process limited uplifts or reductions were applied. The Court quantified and apportioned costs across multiple discovery hearings accordingly and made specific monetar…
30 Apr 2021

WHITE v JAMES HARDIE NEW ZEALAND LIMITED [2021] NZHC 930

Citation

[2021] NZHC 930
Court

High Court

James Hardie was the successful party on the substantive discovery hearing and is entitled to costs on a 3B scale for the 18 December 2019 and 6-7 August 2020 hearings (with a 25% reduction applied to costs attributable to preparation of two defendant affidavits), costs for the 18 March 2020 hearing lie where they fall, and disbursements are to be fixed by the registrar; no general uplift for independent counsel costs or further increases was warranted because the discovery failures and delays were attributable to both sides and the parties had agreed cost-sharing for independent counsel.