Costs fixed at $12,734, plus expenses
The High Court of New Zealand ordered two insurers to pay costs after ruling that their delay forced a court application to obtain answers.
In Williams Corporation Christchurch Limited v The Hollard Insurance Company Pty Limited [2026] NZHC 2528, released on 24 August 2026, the court ordered The Hollard Insurance Company (Hollard) and Ando Insurance Group (Ando) to pay the plaintiffs $12,734. The application concerned interrogatories – formal written questions that a party must answer under oath.
The plaintiffs issued the notice requiring answers on 10 December 2025. The defendants proposed 23 January 2026 as the response date, which the court accepted as understandable given the time of year. That date, the court said, "came and went."
When the plaintiffs pressed for answers and warned they would apply to the court, the defendants replied that responses would arrive "over the next few weeks" but that they would oppose any application. The court found that this was "at best" a "mixed message."
The plaintiffs filed their application on 28 January 2026, and the defendants opposed it. At a telephone conference on 18 February 2026, however, the defendants said they were confident the matter could be resolved by agreement. The court said that this shift, from opposition to agreement, carried "some significance" for costs.
The answers came in stages. The defendants filed three sworn statements on 12 May 2026 that answered every question but one. On that question, each swore they did not know the answer. A week before the hearing, on 15 June 2026, the defendants supplied the answer in an unsworn statement and produced a sworn version the next day.
The court applied the principle that costs follow the event. It held that the plaintiffs had succeeded and found that, but for the application, the defendants would not have answered the final question because they had originally sworn they did not know it. The court rejected the defendants' submission that the application was "clearly unnecessary."
The court agreed that parties should try to resolve matters informally before applying, and that both sides had dealt reasonably with a notice issued at a busy time. It noted that the missed January date had been the defendants' own proposal.
On the amount, the court declined to allow two claims for the single notice because the questions put to Hollard and Ando were identical. It fixed costs at $12,734, plus expenses, a sum the defendants did not challenge.
