Panuku Development Auckland owes Mobil nearly $1m in court costs, after a legal bid failed to get the oil giant to clean up contaminated land it formerly leased at the Tank Farm in Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter.
The New Zealand Herald reports the Supreme Court has just ruled in favour of Mobil Oil not facing a $10m ground surface decontamination bill for Tank Farm by reversing an earlier Court of Appeal decision.
This is the second time the courts have ruled in favour of the Oil giant.
The High Court had previously ruled in 2014 that Mobil Oil was not responsible for cleaning up contaminated land at Auckland’s Tank Farm in the Wynyard Quarter, when it’s 50-year lease ended in 2011.
According to The New Zealand Herald, while it was established the company was not solely responsible for contamination to the land – other oil companies as previous tenants and neighbouring tenants all contributed too – the council controlled organisation then known as Waterfront Auckland claimed Mobil had to deliver the land in a completely “uncontaminated condition” at the end of its lease term.
According to The New Zealand Herald, Waterfront Auckland (Now Panuku Development Auckland) then challenged the 2014 High Court decision and last year the Court of Appeal reversed it, awarding a $10 million judgment.
This has now been reversed by the Supreme Court, leaving the council controlled organisation owing Mobil court costs of close to $1m.
