Defamation settlement details emerge after court hearing
Details of a confidential defamation settlement between former Conservative Party leader Colin Craig and former board member John Stringer have emerged from a High Court hearing in Christchurch.
The hearing heard that as a part of the settlement in January, Stringer was to pay $100,000 to Craig.
The payment was subject to a ‘‘means verification process’’, which examined his ability to pay and after that process he was not required to pay anything.
The day-long legal argument was held in Christchurch yesterday after Stringer filed an application to have Associate Judge Rob Osborne recall his judgment, set it aside, and strike out the proceedings.
Alternatively, Stringer sought to have the judgment recalled and reworded to reflect the actual financial payment, without having it struck out. The application was opposed by Craig. Both men represented themselves in court.
Yesterday’s hearing was held in open court and no part of it was suppressed. When the settlement was reached in January, media reported that it included a financial payment, but the amount and recipient was confidential.
Both men alleged yesterday that the other had breached the confidentiality agreement, and Stringer claimed Craig had ‘‘hidden’’ a 12-page letter from Craig to his former press secretary, Rachel MacGregor, written in 2012. Craig denied this.
Craig sued Stringer for $1.5 million over allegedly defamatory comments he made on television and in his blog last year.
In turn, Stringer and Taxpayers’ Union executive director Jordan Williams sued Craig in an Auckland court action over a pamphlet Craig distributed in July last year.
At the settlement conference in late January, the parties agreed Stringer would apologise, retract his statement, and pay an undisclosed sum.
Stringer told the hearing the amount agreed on was $100,000.
Stringer argued yesterday that all the ‘‘financial matters’’ could not be discussed but in the days after the deal, Craig was reported in the media as saying Stringer would pay Craig an undisclosed sum.
He said he had also been contacted by a reporter for The Press who put to him that the amount was $100,000. This figure could only have come from Craig, he alleged.
The reporter had refused to disclose where the information had come from.
After the means verification hearing, which decided nothing should be paid, Craig said Stringer had published on his Facebook page that the case had been ‘‘settled for zero’’. A print-out of the Facebook entry was produced to the court.
Associate Judge Osborne said: ‘‘Publication of the zero settlement was clearly misleading.’’
Craig told the hearing: ‘‘Disclosure of the zero payment has devalued the settlement to me.’’
Stringer said Craig had disclosed part of the text of the letter from him to McGregor, but the full 12-page text had only reached him after the settlement conference.
Judge Osborne reserved his decision and said he expected to issue it in five or six weeks.