Final Crafar hurdle defeated

The Herald reports:

Chinese company Shanghai Pengxin’s bid to buy the Crafar dairy farms passed its final legal hurdle today after an attempt to block the deal in the Supreme Court was dismissed.

King Country iwi Ngati Rereahu last month initiated a Supreme Court challenge against the approval for the purchase of the sixteen farms granted by the Overseas Investment Office, associate Finance Minister Jonathan Coleman and Land Information Minister Maurice Williamson.

However the court refused to hear the case saying the claim relied on an examination of the Overseas Investment Act’s provisions around the buyers’ required business acumen and experience.

The ministers’ decision to approve the deal the involved “matters of fact and degree rather than the true meaning of the statute” the judges who considered the application said in their decision.

In other words, you can’t appeal just because you didn’t like the decision as you were trying to pick the farms  up cheap.

I hope the partnership between Landcorp and Shanghai Pengxin leads to more opportunities for Landcorp to expand.

I’m also glad it has sent a signal out that investment decisions will be based on the law and the national interest test in the law – not on xenophobic scaremongering.