Independent Fisheries Limited v Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery

Independent Fisheries Limited (IFL) sought judicial review of a decision by the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery to introduce a Land Use Recovery Plan (LURP), which included a noise contour corridor around Christchurch International Airport. The LURP restricted residential development, effectively precluding IFL from developing 21.9 hectares of land it had purchased. The Minister and the Canterbury Regional Council, Christchurch City Council, Waimakariri District Council, Selwyn District Council, New Zealand Transport Agency and Te Rununga o Ngai Tahu (the Responsible Authorities) defended the decision. IFL's application for review was dismissed, and the matter proceeded to a determination of costs.

The court was required to decide whether there should be two sets of costs awards (one for the Minister and one for the Responsible Authorities) and, if so, the particular items of costs that should be awarded. The parties agreed that IFL, as the unsuccessful party, should meet some costs here, in terms of the basic principle in r 14.2(a) of the High Court Rules that costs should follow the event. The parties also appeared to agree that those costs should be awarded on a category 3 basis and that there should be an allowance for costs of second counsel.

The court held that there should be only one set of costs awarded to be shared amongst the respondents. The interests of the Minister and the Responsible Authorities were the same, and they had no conflicting or separate interest requiring separate representation. Their only interest was an overlapping one simply as the public bodies who had made the proposal for the challenged decisions. A double award of costs in those circumstances might be seen as punitive and was not justified in this case. The court decided that all costs should be on a band B basis, with only four departures. The total time and costs involved amounted to $93,051.00 due from IFL. The court ordered IFL to pay to the Minister and to the Responsible Authorities a total amount for costs of $93,051.00, plus reasonable disbursements for each Respondent, such disbursements to be approved by the Registrar.