Posted by alexandra_k on August 18, 2021, at 20:25:17
so fletcher building is a construction company or similar.
and there was some construction material. i don't know what it was. a kind of particle board or whatever to form part of the walls of residential buildings. from low rise to high rise.
and the construction material ended up leaking. so people have leaky homes. they pull the boards off and water got in between the boards and the timber frames of the houses. so the timber frames were rotting. black rot set into them. it sort of... liquidates the wood. a sort of... gangrene for wood or something.
so some english company... provided litigation funding. for a class action lawsuit for the homeowners against fletcher building.
nz doesn't really have good law outcomes for class action or similar. i think generally speaking our courts don't tend to deliver justice.
anyway... half way through the trial the litigation funding was pulled.
that's like... 90 per cent of the legal costs had already been accumulated. only the tipy last bit. of the high court trial. for however many days in court remaining. or maybe that's not quite right, then. i would say 75 per cent of the legal costs had already accumulated...
but of course that's simply to get a high court judgement.
which won't be in the interests of justice. so then round 2 with the court of appeal. another year of delays. then at least 1 more for the supreme court -- right?
and you need to appeal the judgmeent. and you need to appeal the costs judgmeent. so that's actually 2 cases for the court of appeal. and that's not double billing, apparently, that's how that goes. $1,100 filing fee per case filed with the court of appeal. and one filing fee to appeal the judgement and one filing fee to appeal the costs that supposedly follow from teh judgement -- right?
(except teh costs wont' follow the judgement in the case of Alex. I think because our courts will only ever find that the person with the most money is substantively correct so more money must go to them.)
anyway...
apparently there was some concern about fletcher building being run broke. having to liquidate. they couldn't afford to pay the legal costs (pay back the lititation funders) and also pay out the homeowners. pay them any compensation i mean. for the remedial work they needed done to rebuild their houses.
so what happened was that fletcher building paid the legal fees and repaid the litigation funders.
which was apparently generous offer out of court settlement for them.
because in the hearing it was apparent (as it would be have been in teh written submissions that were filed and pretty much just read out loud ove rthe... 4 weeks of hearing. apparently. it would take 4 weeks of listening to them read out the written submissions of the 32 or however many cases that together comprised all the cases for the class action...)
anyhoo... there were problems of the builders not installing according to manufacturers instructions. there were problems of painters or whoever not surfacing the cladding in accordance with the manufacatuerers instructions etc etc etc. sufficient doubt as to who was responsible for the f up. everybody a little bit responsible.
but in all this.. the CE of fletcher building is apparently paid quite a few millinos of dollars in the form of a salary each year.
___
so my question is...
is that because it's a limited liability company? so... by 'paying' everyone on the board of directors (say) millions and millions of dollars of 'salary' then that means that money can't be liquidated out of the company... so that's how fletcher building was able to credibly plead to the courts or whatever that not even the lawyers would get paid if they persisted with the legal action.
is that the idea?
so the people who were allegedly 'paid' that much money... they aren't really. they don't get to spend it. it is tied up in teh company. the salaries of the people in actuallity etc etc.
is that the idea?
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1116484
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20210526/msgs/1116484.html