Owners of New Zealand’s Whakaari White Island, where a volcano eruption in December 2019 killed 22 people, including 17 Australians, have had charges against them dismissed in an Auckland court.
Andrew, James and Peter Buttle of Whakaari Management Limited (WML) were facing charges under New Zealand’s workplace health and safety laws, related to allegations that they failed to adequately understand and manage the risks associated with permitting tours on the island.
Judge Evangelos Thomas agreed with their defense that the prosecution had not presented sufficient evidence to prove the charges against the WML directors.
“There is no evidence in this case as to what happened behind the boardroom door at WML,” he said.
“Without that evidence I cannot assess what a reasonable director would have done.”
Last week, Worksafe NZ concluded its prosecution but the three brothers had lodged an application to have individual charges dropped, which Judge Thomas granted.
The Buttle brother’s lawyer James Cairney consistently argued that the duty under the workplace health and safety act does not fall to the landowners but to the tour operators.
But if the duty did fall to them, there was no evidence on the directors.
Thomas again agreed with said argument saying the blame may fall to the entire board not the individuals.
“The actions or failures of WML may be attributed to the board of directors as a whole”, that was not enough to consider charges against them as individuals,” he said.
“If WML had one director only, it would be straightforward to sheet any failures back to that one director.
“How a company presents itself then to the rest of the world reflects the will of the board as a whole, not the will of individual directors.”
Worksafe NZ lawyer Michael Hodge told the court last week that all thee brothers, as directors of WML, had a duty to ensure the risk assessment was completed.
“If they tasked someone else to do it, or they tasked one of the three to do it, fine, but at the end of the day, all three were responsible for ensuring that it was done,” he said.
He further shared that evidence presented in court proved this to be the case, but Judge Thomas ruled it was not sufficient, as the communications were made on the company’s behalf, not the Buttles.
While the individual charges on each director have been dropped, the trial over their company’s involvement remains ongoing.
Including the brothers and WML, 13 parties were charged as part of the case, which also saw the tour operator, other tourism companies and even the New Zealand’s volcano monitor GNS Science and National Emergency Management Agency charged.
Five of the parties have pleaded guilty and are yet to be sentenced.
