Even as it concludes its argument in the High Court at Auckland today, Turners & Growers is continuing its very public push to hurt kiwifruit exporter Zespri's credibility.This week the High Court is considering the validity of kiwifruit export regula
Even as it concludes its argument in the High Court at Auckland today, Turners & Growers is continuing its very public push to hurt kiwifruit exporter Zespri’s credibility.
This week the High Court is considering the validity of kiwifruit export regulations giving Zespri a monopoly and whether it actually has the jurisdiction to determine if the exporter has discriminated against potential exports or failed to allow diversification.
This is ahead of a substantive hearing next year following a statement of claim lodged by T&G last year alleged unlawful activity by Zespri.
Non-Zespri handled kiwifruit can be exported with a collaborative marketing arrangement (CMA) which is granted by Kiwifruit New Zealand
In a “background” statement today, T&G’s managing director Jeff Wesley said the latest official data available on EMAs showed that 1.68% of the total New Zealand crop –102 million trays – was marketing overseas under CMAs with Zespri.
“The data show that despite the total crop increasing, collaborative marketing programmes have no increased and were down on 2008 and 2007,” Mr Wesley said.
“The figures also show that almost a quarter of collaborative marketing arrangements granted by Kiwifruit New Zealand to any one exporter last year were granted to Zespri itself, which already has the monopoly on exports outside Australasia.”
Mr Wesley said Kiwifruit New Zealand was supposed to allocate a proportion of the crop for CMAs with exporters other than Zespri.
“This was supposed to act as a check on Zespri and raises a question as to why Zezpri is pointlessly applying for CMAs and collaborating with itself when it has no need to do so.”
By contrast, Mr Wesley said, T&G exported nearly 17,000 trays of kiwifruit under CMAs, representing 0.99% of kiwifruit exported under CMAs.
