Latest / Best of Business / Mike Colson: Stout Street Chambers partner on the class-action lawsuit over the Northland power outage

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Mike Colson: Stout Street Chambers partner on the class-action lawsuit over the Northland power outage · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talk ZEDB. Follow
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Northland's entirely avoidable multi day power outage is headed to court.
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  Speaker 2: Two firms, one of them are law firms, one is
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  Speaker 2: Australian one as New Zealand have launched a class action
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  Speaker 2: lawsuit against Transpower and the contractor Omixom, whose staff member
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  Speaker 2: pulled the nuts out of pylon's legs which caused the
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  Speaker 2: thing to fall over. This whole thing cost Northland businesses millions.
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  Speaker 2: Mike Colson Casey is helping with the case.
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  Speaker 3: Hime Mike, Hi, he how are you?
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  Speaker 2: I'm very well, thank you. What does it makes you
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  Speaker 2: think you've got a case here?
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  Speaker 3: I can't get into the precise prospects of the case
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  Speaker 3: because it's before the courts, but I think the two
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  Speaker 3: independent reports really speak for themselves. There was one that
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  Speaker 3: was commissioned by Transpower and there was one that was
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  Speaker 3: commissioned by the Electricity Authority. There's some fairly strong factual
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  Speaker 3: statements in those reports and that's really the basis for
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  Speaker 3: the case.
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  Speaker 2: Do you have like a handle yourself on how much
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  Speaker 2: business is up in and actually lost during this power outage.
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  Speaker 3: We don't have that precise a data at the moment.
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  Speaker 3: There were, as you may recall, reports at the time,
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  Speaker 3: there were estimates by economists as to what the losses were.
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  Speaker 3: We have done some sampling amongst the businesses which we
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  Speaker 3: can extrapolate that we probably don't want to or can't
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  Speaker 3: get into the precise details of losses at this time.
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  Speaker 2: Now, can I deduce from the fact that Omni Bridgeway
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  Speaker 2: is funding the case that Omni Bridgeway thinks there's a
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  Speaker 2: reasonable chance of success here?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, I think that would be Omni Bridgeway's view. There
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  Speaker 3: obviously a commercial litigation funder the use to making decisions
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  Speaker 3: on which litigation they want to back, and they're backing
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  Speaker 3: it with a considerable amount of money.
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  Speaker 2: When the payout, if there is a payout, when that
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  Speaker 2: is finally determined, is it based on is it likely
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  Speaker 2: to be based on what the actual losses were? Or
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  Speaker 2: is it based on actual losses plus a whole bunch
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  Speaker 2: of other stuff.
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  Speaker 3: Ultimately, if we were successful, and there's a whole lot
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  Speaker 3: of hypotheticals associated with that, of course, Heather, it would
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  Speaker 3: be based on the businesses actual losses. So we would
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  Speaker 3: be asking them to put forward sworn statements and other
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  Speaker 3: evidence as to the losses they've suffered, and they'd be
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  Speaker 3: distributed proportionately according to that. Again, so I should say
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  Speaker 3: that's all subject to the court's orders and applications at
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  Speaker 3: the time in the future, but that's the usual process.
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  Speaker 2: Now, Mike, I heard a little bit of commentary this
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  Speaker 2: morning on Mike Hoskins Show that suggested that this is
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  Speaker 2: not the key we weigh and we don't want this
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  Speaker 2: kind of litigation coming into the country.
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  Speaker 1: How do you feel about.
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  Speaker 3: It, well, in terms of this type of litigation coming
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  Speaker 3: into the country, it's just rereading a Law Commission report
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  Speaker 3: from a couple of years ago which indicated there've been
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  Speaker 3: forty seven class or representative actions approved in New Zealand
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  Speaker 3: in the last twenty years. It's not something that's particularly new.
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  Speaker 3: Some people may oppose class actions, and that's understandable if
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  Speaker 3: they wish to do that. But I suppose what this
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  Speaker 3: is about really is giving northern businesses and opportunity potentially
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  Speaker 3: to be compensated, and second an opportunity potentially to incentivize
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  Speaker 3: those working on critical infrastructure to take reasonable care or
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  Speaker 3: do a good job out of it now, as I
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  Speaker 3: should stress the orders we're seeking what are called opt
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  Speaker 3: out orders. That means that if Northland businesses or a
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  Speaker 3: particular Northland business doesn't want to be part of their litigation,
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  Speaker 3: they can opt out and they will no longer be
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  Speaker 3: part of it. Otherwise they're deemed to be in, but
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  Speaker 3: it's entirely their decision as to whether or not they
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  Speaker 3: want to remain in.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Mike listen, thanks for talking us. We'd appreciated. Mike
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  Speaker 2: Colson KC.
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