Westfield meets match in mall

Josephine Grierson

The world's largest mall owner has more than met its match in an Auckland regional shopping mall. Australian giant Westfield, which has 11 malls here, has let lapse its final chance to put Northcote's Fox Outlet Centre out of business.

That leaves Auckland developer and shop owner Josephine Grierson with the record of having taken on and beaten two more powerful foes - Warriors owner and millionaire Eric Watson (over being cut out of the takeover of Bendon in 2002) and now Westfield's founders, the influential Lowy family.

Time ran out on Tuesday for Westfield's solicitors to lodge papers in the Court of Appeal and seek to have the latest round of litigation overturned.

Westfield and lobby group Northcote Mainstreet had a month from the end of January to seek a date for an appeal against Justice Graham Lang's decision in the High Court at Auckland. On January 31, he issued a decision in favour of Fox, which Grierson owns with partner Dominion Funds, leaving the appellants until February 28 to make a new stand.

But no Court of Appeal fixture has been sought.

Barrister David Kirkpatrick, who acted for Fox owner Discount Brands, said the parties were relieved the litigation had ended and he praised the outcome.

Westfield and Northcote Mainstreet had challenged Fox's right to open, after North Shore City Council allowed it a non-notified resource consent three years ago.

But Justice Lang dismissed the claim and said Westfield had not acted in an altruistic way or as self-appointed guardians of the public good. Instead, it had painted Fox in the most negative way possible and he did not want to prolong Discount Brands' agony.


Head to head

Westfield Owns:
* 126 malls in US, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
* Gross value of investments under management: A$41.9 billion.
* Amount of retail space under control: 10 million square metres.
* Number of tenants: 20,600.
* Founder: Australian billionaire Frank Lowy.

Discount Brands
* Owns: A small suburban Auckland mall.
* Gross value of investments under management: $15 million.
* Amount of retail space under control: 1.4ha.
* Number of tenants: about 50.
* Founder: Property developer Josephine Grierson.