Disclosure derails trial

A nine-month trial against four businessman related to the collapse of two finance companies was aborted after an ‘‘unprecedented’’ amount of information was given to the defendants late.

It was still not known whether a retrial would be sought, but the Financial Markets Authority was considering its processes in light of the issues in the case.

Earlier this month, Justice Mark Woolford ‘‘aborted’’ a trial in which the FMA was bringing charges in relation to the collapse of Mutual Finance and Viaduct Capital, which owed investors more than $17 million.

Woolford’s full reasons for aborting the trial were released this week.

The judgment said a list of 14,619 documents was not provided by the prosecutors to the defendants until March this year.

This was because of reasons such as irrelevancy or litigation privilege, but the defence believed many of the documents should be disclosed.

The trial was halted, and despite more than 5500 documents eventually being disclosed, was later aborted.

Justice Woolford said there was a clear breach which was particularly problematic as it was only beginning to be fixed after the main defendant’s case was nearly complete.

While the judge appreciated the ‘‘enormous’’ burden of disclosure in this case, it was not acceptable to withhold relevant information in the interests of efficiency.

‘‘The errors in disclosure thus far are accordingly the responsibility of the Crown. It is not the defence’s responsibility to inquire further about lists or documents if not provided, especially given the defence may not be aware of the documents they do not have.’’

Justice Woolford said there was no suggestion the non-disclosure was in bad faith and said it was inadvertent.

An FMA spokesman said it was considering the judgment. –Fairfax NZ