Booster pushes for info on how other fund managers operate

The investment manager wants its expert witness to be able to compare Booster’s internal processes with other market participants at the substantive hearing in February next year as it defends claims by the FMA that it fell short in the way it managed related party transaction rules.

In a half-day hearing at the High Court in Auckland on Tuesday, Justice Michael Arthur reserved his decision on the discovery application by Booster, which argued accessing documents on broader market practices was highly relevant to its case, while the FMA’s counsel played down the need to share the information with a subject specialist and warned an order could encroach on confidential information and make firms reluctant to willingly provide it to the regulator.

The discovery hearing reiterated the crux of the dispute between Booster and the FMA, in that the regulator claims the fund manager breached related party transaction rules through its investments in the Booster Tahi limited partnership by not having its own investment committee certify each drawdown on the initial commitment.

Booster is of the view that the investment committee’s initial related party certification in making the commitment of investing up to 5% of its assets sufficed, and that it didn’t need new certificates for each investment.

Read the full report by Paul McBeth at The Bottom Line.