Auckland-based Te Kawerau received forestry at Riverhead with a value of $6.5 million as a Treaty settlement. Dianne Lee is in court alleging Te Kawerau awarded her company Tahi Enterprises Ltd the exclusive right to a 35 per cent share in all future iwi profits.
Tahi Enterprises claims joint venture agreements signed with Te Kawerau in 2007 and 2008 granted Tahi exclusive rights to share in all future developments. This took place some seven years before the iwi’s Treaty settlement was finalised by parliament. In return, Tahi promised up to two million dollars in cash to fund Treaty negotiations. The agreements require funds advanced to be repaid out of iwi cash receipts, in particular from rentals received for cutting rights in the Riverhead forest. Tahi Enterprises claims it is presently owed $1.3 million.
The High Court was told lawyers for Te Kawerau purported to cancel the joint venture agreement. Tahi Enterprises sued. It alleges Te Warena Taua, rangatira of Te Kawerau, and kuia Hariata Arapo Ewe had authority to commit their iwi to the deal and that it is binding. Mrs Ewe has since died.
In a preliminary hearing before the High Court, Justice Lang ruled Tahi Enterprises would need to prove each and every one of the iwi had agreed to Mr Taua and Mrs Ewe signing. At the time the joint venture agreements were signed, the iwi had about 400 members aged eighteen, or over.
Tahi Enterprises is also suing Mr Taua for rent allegedly due on his home at Oruarangi Road. Mangere. Ms Lee says she was told by Mr Tuau that the iwi had agreed to gift him a sum equivalent to four per cent of the Treaty settlement value in recognition of his and his father’s efforts in pursuing iwi Treaty claims. Ms Lee says she then purchased Oruarangi Road for $220,000 from interests associated with Mr Taua. He signed on as tenant, paying rent. The deal envisaged Oruarangi Road being handed back once Mr Tuau paid Tahi Enterprises the funds he said the iwi were to give him. Ms Lee says no funds have been handed over and rent is in arrears.
Tahi Enterprises Ltd v. Taua – High Court (26.03.18)
18.067