The SFO overcharged

The Serious Fraud Office said:

The SFO welcomes the Court of Appeal’s decision today which corrected the High Court findings in its New Zealand First Foundation (NZFF) case and reinforced the importance of transparency around political donations in a democratic system. 

Following the NZFF trial in 2022 the High Court found “if the money is ‘party donations’, there is comprehensive evidence [the accused] deployed the dishonest scheme in order to deceive the party and party secretary as to their better claims to the money…”.  

However, the Judge concluded that because the nearly $750,000 of funds were not deposited into the party’s account, they were not party “donations” under the Electoral Act, despite the clear intention of donors.  

The Crown argued that this finding was wrong and today the Court of Appeal agreed that the Judge erred in finding the donations were not party “donations” under the Electoral Act. 

It is very good that the Court of Appeal over-ruled the High Court that a donation for a party is somehow not a party donation if the party redirects it to another entity.

Ultimately, the appeal was dismissed on the basis of the second ground of appeal regarding claim of right. Due to “an unfortunate lacuna in the [High Court] Judge’s reasoning”, despite the finding that the respondents had acted dishonestly, the Court held that Crown was not in a position to advance an argument of error of law on this point.  

Which means the respondents were again found not guilty.

In my opinion the SFO made an error by trying to turn what was a simple electoral law case into a more complex fraud conspiracy case. If they had merely charged people with breaches of the Electoral Act, then the outcome may have been quite different.