The National Business Review yesterday won another court victory after a second failed bid by ex-Rich Lister John Robert Sanders (60) to shut down reporting of his divorce settlement crisis.Late yesterday afternoon High Court Justice Lyn Stevens dismissed
The National Business Review yesterday won another court victory after a second failed bid by ex-Rich Lister John Robert Sanders (60) to shut down reporting of his divorce settlement crisis.
Late yesterday afternoon High Court Justice Lyn Stevens dismissed an application by Mr Sanders for an order suppressing all further publication of the case, pending an appeal to the Court of Appeal.
“Given the substantial publication that has already taken place, the sky has not fallen in,” Justice Stevens said.
NBR law and courts reporter Jock Anderson successfully opposed the application, as he did last week when a bid was made to gag reporting of the case then.
Mr Sanders’ Queen’s counsel Anne Hinton recruited heavyweight media law specialist Willie Akel to argue against NBR’s right to publish.
Queen’s counsel Deborah Hollings said Mrs Sanders remained neutral on being named.
Mr Akel indicated yesterday that Mr Sanders would still file an appeal with the Court of Appeal today (Thursday) against an order made by Justice Stevens last Friday permitting Mr Anderson to report the case and name the parties.
Last Friday’s three-day High Court hearing was to have heard an application by Mr Sanders to set aside a May 2008 mediated divorce settlement with his ex-wife Yvonne.
That settlement guaranteed Mrs Sanders $7.5 million from an asset pool of $30m, with the balance of $23m going to Mr Sanders.
The agreement was made on the basis of a $16m value on their Remuera Rd family home – previously bought from David Richwhite for a record $9 million – and a beach house at Leigh valued at $6 million.
Mr Sanders contended that the $30 million asset pool on which the divorce settlement was agreed was severely depleted by falling property prices over the last two years.
Mrs Sanders would still get her $7.5 million but Mr Sanders would get much less, which he said was unfair and wanted the agreement set aside.
Last week’s hearing never got to Mr Sanders’ application because it was taken up with legal argument about whether NBR’s Jock Anderson could remain in court, report the case and name the couple.
In what was a landmark test case on new family law, Justice Stevens allowed Mr Anderson and NBR to report the case and publish the couple’s names.
At yesterday’s hastily convened telephone conference Mr Akel – a TVNZ lawyer who usually trumpets the right to publish – also failed to get a stay of publication when he tried to say the story wasn’t newsworthy and it could wait until after an appeal to be published.
Justice Stevens said it was not an appropriate case to order a stay.
He also said the suppression orders sought were "in reality futile” after publication of the story to thousands of NBR online subscribers last Friday.
Justice Stevens said that even if further publication could be prevented pending appeal, he was not satisfied Mr Sanders had made out any factual grounds for granting the interim suppression orders pending appeal.
