Businessman’s bid for $1.28m costs quashed

The Court of Appeal has dismissed businessman Paul Neville Bublitz’s claim for increased court costs of $1.28 million from the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) over an aborted trial in 2016.

In February Bublitz, Bruce Alexander Mckay, Richard Timothy Blackwood and Lance Morrison were accused of deliberately misleading investors to try to save failing investments, and didn’t declare related party loans. The men had been involved in various property developments using funds from Viaduct Capital and Mutual Finance. Bublitz and his codefendants were first charged in March 2014, but the trial, which began in August 2016, was aborted after it emerged the Crown, and the FMA as prosecuting authority, failed to disclose 14,619 documents.

Following the aborted trial, but before the conclusion of the retrial in 2018, Bublitz and Morrison applied to the High Court for costs.

Last year High Court Justice Mark Woolford considered that costs under the Costs in Criminal Cases Act (CCCA) were available only to Morrison because the ‘‘unique circumstances’’ of the case meant it was inappropriate to hear Bublitz’s application while significant charges remained outstanding against him at the time.

Bearing in mind all the factors including Morrison’s failure to establish his innocence despite all charges against him having been dismissed, Woolford decided an award of $75,000 would be just and reasonable in the circumstances. He ordered the FMA, the Crown prosector, to pay Bublitz and the other three defendants $10,000 each for its procedural failure which led to the aborted trial.

Bublitz and Morrison applied for increased court costs at the Court of Appeal. Bublitz sought costs of $1,284,493, while Morrison sought costs totalling $212,992.

However the Court of Appeal was satisfied with Woolford’s original decision to award costs, and dismissed both Bublitz and Morrison’s claims of increased court costs.