KEY POINTS:
Details have emerged of a trust set up in the early 1990s to pay Winston Peters' legal bills, raising fresh questions over claims the NZ First leader was never charged for work carried out by his lawyer Brian Henry.
The Auckland barrister told a privileges committee hearing last
week neither he nor his instructing solicitor Dennis Gates ever billed Peters for the legal work carried out on his behalf, saying if he could not fundraise what was owed, he would simply give his time as a donation.
However, confidential party documents obtained by the Herald on Sunday raise more questions about the arrangement between Peters and Henry over legal fees.
The documents firstly confirm the existence of the Winston Peters Fighting Fund Trust.
This was established in February 1993 specifically to pay legal costs associated with Peters' legal battles - such as the high-profile defamation action taken against him by businessman Selwyn Cushing.
This trust, of which Peters is listed in the documents as one of three trustees, is separate to the secretive Spencer Trust, which Peters has said he had no knowledge of.
Minutes from a September 1993 meeting of the fighting fund trust confirm an "account for payment" for $4500 to Henry, money that former trustee Suzanne Edmonds says was owed for legal ser-vices carried out on behalf of Peters.
At the next monthly meeting of the trust, the issue of the payment to Henry comes up again and it is agreed arrange-ments will be made by the trust to pay Henry within the following fortnight.
Henry did not respond to Herald on Sunday questions regarding the $4500 "account for payment", but did tell the privileges committee last week that since 1991 he had not issued Peters with an invoice for legal work.
Edmonds, however, said under the strict practices of the trust, payments were not made unless an invoice had been submitted.
If a payment of $4500 was to have been made to Henry there would have been an invoice from Henry, or at the very least from his instructing solicitor, for that amount, she said.
"...that trust was run very well and we certainly paid on our invoice [basis]. That is the manner in which we ran the trust."
Edmonds also claimed other payments were made by the trust to Henry through his instructing solicitor.
A series of questions were submitted to Peters but he declined to answer them.
Other documents show Gates, as the instructing solicitor, did send invoices for legal services addressed to him to the Win-ston Peters Fighting Fund Trust for payment. These include invoices on behalf of Colin Pidgeon QC, who worked alongside Henry on the Cushing and Russell McVeagh lawsuits. The docu-ments clearly show funds donated to the trust were certainly used to pay lawyers and this was at the direction of Peters.
A handwritten note by Peters, on a faxed note he received from Gates, states: "We owe Gates... can we pay this amount [$6681.39] or as much of it as possible."
Gates refused to answer Herald on Sunday questions about his billing practices.
Under the billing system used by barristers, they are paid by the instructing solicitor who in turn recovers the legal fees from the client.
Under this arrangement it would have been highly unusual for Henry, the barrister, to bill Peters, the client, direct as those bills - if they existed - would have gone to Gates, the instructing solicitor, who would have then sought payment.
Last week Henry appeared before the privileges committee hearing amid claims Peters broke Parliament's rules by failing to declare a $100,000 donation from expatriate billionaire Owen Glenn and explained the payment arrangement between himself and the NZ First leader.
Henry told MPs he had long employed the practice of fundraising to pay Peters' debt and would not tell him about doing this to protect him.
"The position is I have not rendered a fee note to the solicitor for the work done and that solicitor has not rendered a bill to Winston.
"Until my instructing solicitor renders a bill to Winston, there is no debt owed by Winston.
"The obligation to meet any outstanding fee was understood as a moral, not a legal obligation. If the money cannot be fundraised, then my time is donated.
"I would, where possible, fundraise and any funds raised would go towards the fees due.
"This procedure means Winston at no time had a legal obligation to pay me any fees. The fees are either a donation of my time or fundraised."
Edmonds, who is no longer with NZ First, said she did not wish to disclose the reasons why she parted company with the party.
However, she hoped all matters relating to party donations were "investigated properly so the truth comes out".
