Reay moves again to stop disciplinary hearing

The engineer whose firm designed the disastrous CTV building will try to stop a disciplinary hearing into his conduct.

Alan Reay, 81, has moved to stop a hearing that Engineering New Zealand (ENZ) – formerly the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand (IPENZ) – wants to hold into a 2012 complaint about his conduct regarding the CTV building, which collapsed during the Christchurch earthquakes in 2011 with the loss of 115 lives.

The legal manoeuvre is the latest attempt by Reay to prevent the complaint process continuing. In previous legal action he claimed ENZ no longer had jurisdiction over him since he resigned from the body in 2014. The High Court disagreed and Reay’s appeal to the Court of Appeal failed in 2019. At the time, Reay said the disciplinary hearing would be a waste of ENZ’s resources and focus.

In March this year, ENZ announced a hearing before its disciplinary tribunal would be held in August.

Reay’s lawyer, Willie Palmer, in a written statement yesterday, said Reay had filed a judicial review application in the High Court at Wellington.

A judicial review asks the court to invalidate the decision of a statutory body – in this case the IPENZ.

Palmer said Reay was claiming IPENZ’s process over the complaint was unfair because IPENZ had set a hearing date in August when Reay’s senior counsel, Kristy McDonald, KC, was unavailable. It had also “refused to particularise the allegation against him that he failed to adequately supervise his employee in 1986”, so that Reay was unable to adequately respond.

“It is now over 10 years since the complaint was made. Dr Reay is aged 81 and has been retired as an engineer for several years. Dr Reay is seeking orders from the court that IPENZ’s process must end,’’ the statement said.

The 2012 royal commission into the collapse of the building found Reay’s firm’s engineer David Harding, who designed the building, was left largely unsupervised by Reay, despite Harding’s limited experience designing multi-level buildings.

Harding was working ‘‘beyond his competence’’ and Reay did not review the design, the report said. It also said Reay had interfered in the issue of a building permit for the deficient design by persuading the council’s building engineer that concerns about the building were unfounded.

When a problem with connections between the building’s floor slabs and north wall were highlighted in a presale report by Holmes Consulting Group in January 1990, Reay had been slow to act and the firm should have obtained a building permit before steel brackets – found to be inadequate – to remedy the problem were fitted, the commission said.

CTV Families Group spokesperson Maan Alkaisi has previously said engineers involved with the building had not ‘‘done their jobs properly’’.

‘‘There was incompetency, unprofessional practice, and a lack of ethical behaviour risking public lives and safety,’’ he said.

Dr Reay is seeking orders from the court that IPENZ’s process must end. Willie Palmer Lawyer for Alan Reay