Auckland businessman and former investment banker Bill Birnie abandoned his bid to stop a $19m damages claim case against him yesterday.

Birnie Capital Property Partnership shareholders Allen Peters and Bernard Quinn allege that Mr Birnie and fellow director Stephen Norrie breached fiduciary duty by failing to exercise a put option to cancel BCPP’s $19m purchase of the Lion Rock development in the Bay of Islands.

Mr Birnie this week tried to stop the trial on the basis of new evidence, but abandoned his appeal after the Court of Appeal refused to allow the new documents in.

For more on this, see today's print edition of NBR.