BREAKING: Court overturns Crafar farms sale decision

Wednesday 15th February 2012 5 Comments

The decision allowing sale of the Crafar dairy farms to Chinese investor Shanghai Pengxin has been set aside, with the High Court directing Ministers to reconsider the application.

Judge Forrest Miller found that the Overseas Investment Office's recommendation to allow the purchase to occur "materially overstated" the economic benefit of the transaction to the New Zealand economy.

That was because any new purchaser of the farms would be expected to return them from their current "unsatisfactory" state "to bring their production up to its potential."

(BusinessDesk)

BusinessDesk.co.nz

Comments from our readers

On 15 February 2012 at 2:29 pm TonyR said:

Lease it out to Shanghai Penqxin All parties could be winners thenAZUG

On 15 February 2012 at 3:11 pm Alberre said:

How odd. But maybe now the receivers should get on with selling the farms individually.

On 15 February 2012 at 3:13 pm Gary said:

Perfect, might stop the Government from trying to ride roughshod over the people so often and help them realise they work for 'us' for the full term, not only election times.

On 15 February 2012 at 3:26 pm Greg said:

The issue here is that it is NOT the Government but a Government Department and quite they check every deicision the OIS makes. I am glad that the decision by the OIS has been overturned but I a'm not sure that I like the other on the table either. Maybe as Alberre states, seeling individually would be a good thing!

On 15 February 2012 at 3:42 pm Barry said:

John Key stated that the rules were followed but as the High Court decided this can not be true.Why does the Govt continue to try and pull the wool over our eyes?