Former Yarrows director eyes bankruptcy appeal
A former director of Taranaki’s Yarrows Bakery, who was made bankrupt in 2017, has been given the chance to lodge an appeal hearing application after his first attempt was foiled due to an error by his counsel.
Westpac New Zealand Ltd applied to have Paul Steven Yarrow, the son of bakery founder Noel Yarrow, made bankrupt following the $150 million collapse of the Yarrow Group.
At the time of the collapse, in 2011, the bank was owed $15m.
Paul Yarrow was declared bankrupt on September 19, 2017.
He filed an appeal on October 17, 2017 and under the rules of the Court of Appeal was required to make an application for a hearing date within three months of the appeal being brought.
However, because of an error made by his counsel this step was not taken and as a result the appeal was deemed abandoned. Yarrow then made an application to the Court of Appeal for extra time to apply for the allocation of a hearing date. In a decision, given by Justice Stephen Ko´ s and released on Tuesday, Yarrow’s extension application was granted.
Yarrow has until January 25 to make the application, with the court registrar required to set any hearing down for the first available date.
In the decision, Ko´ s said Yarrow’s grounds for appeal were weak but that was no reason to deny him the right to make an application for a hearing date. There was no order for costs. This is the latest in a number of long-running court battles involving Yarrow.
Earlier in the year, he was ordered to pay costs of $277,695.19 to cover Westpac New Zealand’s legal fees incurred during the hearing to have him made bankrupt.
He’s also been through a failed attempt to sue the company’s accountant and former company co-director Michael Finnigan, whom he blamed for the collapse and his subsequent loss of income from the Manaia-based company, for $90m.
Proceedings against Finnigan first began in 2011.
Around the same time Yarrow also brought court proceedings against a number of parties, in New Zealand and Australia, including his late parents’ charitable trust, and the executors of his father’s estate.
Finnigan was later awarded $100,350 in costs for the longrunning court battle.