Sally Ridge to fight bankruptcy push

Sally Ridge's lawyer says he'll oppose any bankruptcy push by her ex-partner Adam Parore's business after the Auckland socialite was ordered to pay him $100,000 in legal costs.

Ridge lost her legal battle to gain half of ex-partner Adam Parore's business and was told to pay costs of more than $100,000. Parore's company Small Business Accounting (SBA) recently served bankruptcy notices on Ridge.

"SBA is presently seeking to enforce the High Court costs award," Parore said last week. "Given she has a net worth in excess of $2 million and the judgment is only for $101,000 the company is confident of recovery."

Ridge's lawyer, Daniel Grove, told the Herald this week he and his client would "take steps to oppose any bankruptcy petition" from SBA.

"There's different legal avenues for dealing with this and we'll deal with it when it needs to be dealt with," he said.

Ridge and her daughter, Jaime, took Parore to the High Court at Auckland last September seeking a 50 per cent shareholding in his SBA company and the back-payment of unpaid dividends.

They lost the case and were instructed to pay costs.

In his judgment on the case in February, Justice Murray Gilbert said Ridge's claim failed "at the first hurdle". Ridge's appeal against a High Court decision stumbled after she failed to pay $5880 as security for costs.