Norske Skog Tasman's paper mill in Kawerau was shut down in 2021, and after selling most of its land, the company now only owns a controversial landfill site.
Norske Skog Tasman's paper mill in Kawerau was shut down in 2021, and after selling most of its land, the company now only owns a controversial landfill site.
Environmental complaints from neighbours against Kawerau’s now-closed Tasman mill are understood to be a key component of potentially $1 billion in claims against now-liquidated former operator Norske Skog Tasman, the Herald can reveal.
Last week the Herald broke the news the former mill owner, href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/norway/" target="_blank">Norwegian timber giant Norske Skog, had elected to liquidate its New Zealand subsidiary Norske Skog Tasman after claims against the company “became so material that the director ... concluded that the company is no longer solvent”.
Accounts suggest $10.3 million in proceeds of Norske Skog’s sale of the majority of its real estate property last year - that crucially excluded a toxic landfill at the heart of claims against it - remain within the company and are being held in trust to settle claims.
However, the first report of liquidators David Roscoe and Adele Hicks said the claims dwarfed this provision.
There are six outstanding claims at various stages of litigation, with a potential value of $115m to $1.04b.
Analysis of unsecured creditors listed in the first liquidator’s report suggest Māori trusts owning land adjoining the old mill site are key claimants, with disputes with Norske Skog going back decades.
Accounts for the Kawerau A8D Trust, listed as an unsecured creditor of Norske Skog Tasman and owner of a forestry block bordering the mill, record an “ongoing dispute” with the company “as to the condition of the block in relation to contamination coming from neighbouring leased blocks”.
The accounts flag this dispute as a contingent liability and states “this is likely to be a considerable drain on trust finances into the future”.
2023 accounts for the Kawerau A8D Trust disclose a long-running dispute with Norske Skog Tasman over contamination from its Tasman paper mill.
The A8D Trust is one of five Māori land trusts listed as unsecured creditors, all represented in the liquidation by Rotorua lawyer Mark Copeland. Copeland has not returned repeated phone calls or responded to messages left by the Herald.
Many of these trust creditors have been active for decades in pushing back against environmental damage from the mill.
A Waitangi Tribunal report from 1995 chronicled complaints of waterway pollution dating back from the 1980s, and an ultimately abandoned injunction against Norske Skog to cease illegal waste dumping was filed in the Māori Land Court in 2003.
Roscoe told the Herald he acknowledged the scale and history of the mill but was unable to comment further.
“We’re engaging with the claimants and working through that at the moment. I can only really have a ‘no comment’ at this stage while we get our feet under the desk,” he said.
He said that of the six claimants flagged in the report, not all were Māori trust landowners, but declined to identify the other parties.
The Tasman mill in Kawerau was a major employer, industry and landmark in the region with the town of Kawerau largely growing around it following its opening in 1952. Norske Skog shut the plant down in 2021, citing reduced demand for newsprint paper, leading to the loss of 160 jobs.
Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism - including twice being named Reporter of the Year - and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting from business newspapers and national magazines.
