Battle over 70 million dollar farming fortune ends

An epic legal battle for control of a $70 million farming fortune is at an end after going all the way to New Zealand's highest court.

The eight-year dispute often appeared like the plot from an airport novel, with the patriarch and five children of the Kain clan one of Canterbury's most prominent families claiming they were being unfairly denied the benefits of the fortune.

Their claims were hotly disputed by the other branch of the family, headed by octogenarian Hawkes Bay farmer Tom Couper, who was primarily responsible for amassing the family fortune and who accused the Kain clan of bleeding the family fortune.

The ruling by the Supreme Court yesterday was the legal equivalent of a score draw, with each side having one victory each over the legitimacy of disputed trusts.

But the decision, by a panel of five judges headed by Chief Justice Sian Elias, was a tiny remnant of the original claim in the High Court in Christchurch, which involved a tranche of interconnected trusts set up by Couper and his supporters and which have been substantially upheld by the courts.