Jenee Tibshraeny: NZ Herald Wellington business editor on the Court of Appeal allowing BNZ to close Gloriavale's bank accounts

A significant decision from the Court of Appeal could see Gloriavale shut down its' operations for good.

The court has thrown out an injunction that prevented BNZ from closing the West Coast Christian community's accounts.

BNZ attempted to stop doing business with Gloriavale in 2022, after the community's child labour usage breached its human rights policy.

NZ Herald Wellington business editor Jenee Tibshraeny unpacks the wider implications of this verdict.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Petrol stations aren't the only ones trying not to lose
their access to banking. As we talked about yesterday, Gloria
Vale has lost the battle against ben Z as well.
Jane Tips Trainey is with me. She is The Herald's
Wellington Business editor. Janee good evening. Hey Royan, good to
have you on the show. And tell me about the
You've been speaking to Gloria Vale's lawyer. Are they going

(00:21):
to take this further? Are they going to take further
action about the decision from the Benzett Look.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
I've actually been talking to the chief executive of the
trust behind Gloria Vale, that's the Christian Church Community Trust,
a man called Phil Jamison. He's not actually in Gloria Vale,
but he is helping manage Gloriavale's affairs now. Phil said
to me, and I quote, it will not be the
end of the community. He is fairly adamant that Gloria

(00:49):
Vale will be able to find an alternative once benz
closes its accounts in three months time. That seems to
be the current plan. Phil wouldn't give away too much.
He said, these are commercial, you know decisions there or
you know, commercially sense of information, but he said Gloria
Vale was actively pursuing a range of options. I asked him, well,

(01:12):
could Gloria Vale get an overseas bank to deal with it?
And he said that was highly unlikely. You know, the
thing here is that you would imagine that Gloria Vale
does need a bank. Its net assets are worth at
least forty seven million dollars. That's that's a lot of money,
and you know, it needs somewhere to put its money,

(01:32):
and it needs to be able to transact to you know,
keep its various commercial farming entities going, keep you know
that the people fed and the kids are educated, and
laundry going and all that type of thing.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, so what, Yeah, it's an interesting one. Hopefully they
have managed to find some kind of solution for them.
But generally speaking, the issue of d banking seems to
creep up more and more at the moment. Should we
feel uncomfortable about that?

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, I think we've actually had a couple of weeks
of lots of D banking news with the petrol stations
and this. I think it's actually been something that's been
happening for some time and it's been well marked. So
if we go back to the petrol stations issue. I
know that, you know, central bankers have for the past
decade been worried about stranded assets. That's you know, investors

(02:23):
pulling out of sunset industries due to climate concerns, you know,
and and banks also pulling out. That's what we're starting
to see that has been well signaled in Gloriavale's case.
I think it's quite different, you know, because Gloria Vale
has been found guilty of, you know, using children to
do work, and there are also charges related to sexual harassment,

(02:45):
so Gloriavale is quite different to the petrol stations. A
few years ago, there was a lot of riff raff
because money remitters we're being dbanked because banks were worried
about money laundering concerns. You know, if you're a money remitter,
it's hard for the bank to know exactly where the
money is coming from and who it's going to. So
I actually think it's an issue that's been happening for

(03:06):
some time. It's just happens to have been in the
news quite a bit in recent weeks.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah, interesting that, Jena, Thank you very much. Jane Tips
Training The New Zealand Herald Wellington Business Editor. For more
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