Lawsuit over combustible panels
Law firm Russell Mcveagh has lined up Australian litigation lender IMF Bentham to fund a class action lawsuit for owners of buildings clad in combustible aluminium panels.
Following the fatal Grenfell Tower fire in London in 2017, and the Lacrosse fire in Melbourne in 2014, Australian building owners are removing suspect aluminium panels from their properties, and some New Zealand owners, including Skycity, have followed suit.
IMF Bentham was already funding a lawsuit in Australia in which building owners were suing aluminium panel-makers and distributors for compensation over the costs of recladding their buildings.
‘‘What we are doing is making it possible for building owners who might be interested in finding out more to register their interest,’’ said Polly Pope, litigation partner from Russell Mcveagh.
A combustible class action website had been launched on which building owners could register their interest.
It was not yet known exactly how many buildings in Auckland and Wellington were clad with aluminium panels similar to those that clad the 23-storey Grenfell Tower where 72 people died as a result of a fire which started in the kitchen of a fourth floor flat.
Auckland Council, which has published a list of aluminium panel-clad buildings including the TVNZ building, identified 13 high-rise buildings which were clad with panels similar to those on Grenfell Tower but said there was no immediate danger to the people living or working in them.
IMF Bentham and Russell Mcveagh expected the New Zealand class action would be filed by the end of the year.
Pope, who did not name possible defendants, acknowledged
Russell Mcveagh was already in contact with some interested building owners. ‘‘This has been an issue which I have been following for some time,’’ she said. She could not reveal the identities of the building owners she had been in contact with.
Gavin Beardsell, investment manager from IMF Bentham, said there were several thousand buildings in Australia clad with combustible panels and many owners were having them reclad, though others had not yet begun the process.
‘‘Some have received orders from the local councils to do so, and others are burying their heads in the sand,’’ he said.
The New Zealand action would be a product liability claim against manufacturers of Alucobond and Vitrabond PE core cladding products.
There were ‘‘potentially hundreds of buildings across New
Zealand’’ with combustible PE core cladding, Beardsell said.
Many owners did not know if their building’s cladding was combustible, the litigation funder said.
IMF Bentham would fund building experts to assess buildings to determine the type and brand of cladding at no cost to owners.
The class action was open to property owners, body corporates and lease-holders who had suffered or would suffer financial loss from removing and replacing Alucobond and Vitrabond PE core cladding products, or taking other remedial measures, Beardsell said.
Those losses included the cost of elevated insurance premiums charged by insurers of buildings clad with combustible panels.
IMF Bentham has offices in the United States, Canada, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong and makes its money by funding lawsuits, and is paid from any compensation claimants win.