By PHILIPPA STEVENSON agricultural editor
Most of the 2.4 million cartons of apples approved for export independent of statutory exporter Enza are in limbo after it gained an injunction stopping the consents process.
Enza took the action, which effectively scuttled the export permits process, in the High Court at Wellington yesterday.
The permits
committee, a body appointed by the regulatory Apple and Pear Board, can allow only exports that are complementary to Enza's.
Hours before Enza representatives appeared in court, 150 apple growers marched to petition Parliament to relax the regulations.
Growers' spokesman Peter Young said the petition called for export regulations to favour growers, not Enza, and for Enza to be kept out of the consent process.
In yesterday's decision, Justice Doogue ordered the permits committee not to execute permits without Enza's consent or an order by the court.
The order applied to applications approved in principle a ruling that has caught out most of the more than 2.4 million cartons the committee had approved by the end of November.
Enza's chairman Tony Gibbs said he believed that as few as 150,000 cartons had been finalised, meaning that about 2.3 million would be put on hold while the legal process continued.
The case is listed to be heard on December 18.
Enza was aware its legal challenge would hold up permits already approved, and had taken the action because it believed other exporters would directly compete in its traditional markets.
He said it was pure coincidence that Enza had been in court the same day the growers marched.
