Court dismisses Henderson appeal

The Court of Appeal has dismissed Christchurch property developer David Henderson’s appeal against conditions imposed when he was discharged from bankruptcy, including a permanent ban on giving personal guarantees for debts and a ban of being a director until December 2022.

Henderson was first bankrupted in 1996 and discharged in 1999. He was bankrupted for a second time in November 2010, with debts estimated to be between $100 million and $150m.

While he would have been automatically discharged from bankruptcy within three years under the terms of the Insolvency Act, the Official Assignee objected, triggering a public examination of Henderson’s affairs by the High Court, including his conduct post-adjudication. Associate Judge Rob Osborne granted the conditional discharge following that process.

Henderson’s appeal was based on the grounds that Osborne imposed the conditions on his discharge without properly considering his post-adjudication conduct and that if he had, then less stringent conditions might have been imposed.

But the Court of Appeal ruled that the judge wasn’t obliged to make specific findings about Henderson’s post-adjudication conduct and that he was “satisfied that the root causes of Mr Henderson’s bankruptcy were profound and endemic to his character”.