Court confirms Wings and Wheels funds held on trust

A judge in the Auckland High Court confirmed yesterday that the money paid for tickets to the postponed airshow Wings and Wheels over Waikato was being held on trust by the airshow’s organisers and that the money should be used to pay refunds to entitled ticket holders. This clears the way to begin a process to refund eligible ticket holders.

Justice Lang has ordered that the funds, around $500,000, should be transferred to Insolvency Management Ltd, the liquidators for airshow.co.nz Limited. The Court will then consider which ticketholders have a legal entitlement to a refund. The liquidators will be responsible for administering the refund process.

In March 2008 the Commission obtained a court order freezing the assets of Hawker Holdings, Airshow.co.nz – Media Limited, airshow.co.nz Limited and Kenneth James Ross, so that ticket money would be available for refunds.

“We are pleased to have achieved this positive outcome for ticket holders, which ensures that those people entitled to a refund will get their money,” said Adrian Sparrow, Commerce Commission Director of Fair Trading. “However, the Court is yet to determine which ticketholders are eligible for a refund and the mechanism for the refund process has not yet been set in place. As a result, we ask for ticket holders to continue to be patient.”

When further details are available, the Commission will communicate with ticket holders via a dedicated page on the Commission’s web site, www.comcom.govt.nz under Fair Trading/Wings and Wheels over Waikato.

Around 2,300 applications for refunds are already registered with the Commission and this information will be passed on to the liquidators to assist them in the process of identifying the ticket holders. Ticket holders who have already sent an application form and who have received an acknowledgement letter or email from the Commission do not need to resubmit their application for refund.

Further details will be available shortly via the Commission’s website for the approximately 1,200 ticket holders who have not yet filed an application form.

Background

In March 2008 the Commission obtained a court order freezing the assets of Hawker Holdings, Airshow.co.nz – Media Limited, airshow.co.nz Limited and Kenneth James Ross, so that ticket money would be available for refunds. In an agreement reached between the airshow organisers and the Commission in June 2008, ticketholders’ funds were paid into the trust account of the organisers’ solicitors and the organisers undertook to administer the process of refunding ticket holders. The company then went into liquidation and in October 2008, the Commerce Commission took over the process of registering eligible ticketholders while clarity of the status of the funds was sought from the courts.

Prosecution of Kenneth Ross. The New Zealand Police and the Commerce Commission have laid charges against Mr Ross in relation to the promotion of the postponed air show Wings and Wheels over Waikato. As this is before the courts, there will be no further comment on this issue.