On
23/6/06 17:14, "Geoff McLay" wrote:
The judgment in Chirnside is currently under appeal in
the NZ Supreme Court. We have been waiting for six months for
the judgment. Part of the problem with the decision is the finding
that there was no proper joint venture but there was some kind
of residual fiduciary obligation - this appeared to me to conflict
with the Court of Appeal and Privy Council's prior decision in
FAR v Arklow (both cases involved the provision of not
particularly confidential information about a business opportunity.
Interestingly Justice Blanchard who partially dissented in Arklow
is the last remaining judge of the Arklow court (I think) still
on the NZ bench. If you are going to recognize such fiduciary
relationships then perhaps you need to be less strict with causation?
There is no mention in the case of the Pallant v Morgan
equity that I thought might have applied ( it was a partnership
to buy land).
I will let you all know what happens.
Geoff
Ps the decision of court on damages is extremely problematic and
gets down to I think about 25 % of a chance, which sounds to me
like no chance at all, especially as the party that walked away
had all the money ,and ability to put the deal into effect.
