The High Court has dismissed Green Pastures (Donegal)’s application to strike out Aurivo Co-operative Society Limited’s defence or require it to provide further discovery in a dispute over milk quota records.
Mr Justice Ryan ruled that the records Green Pastures sought were not covered by the discovery category at issue. He said that category concerned documents about the methods and systems Aurivo used when deciding how to allocate excess milk quota to suppliers. It did not require Aurivo to disclose all records it was obliged to keep under milk quota regulations.
Green Pastures alleges that Aurivo induced its farmer supplier, David Ramsey, to switch to Aurivo by offering additional milk quota. It claims this was part of a policy to take suppliers from rival milk producers and seeks injunctions and damages. Those allegations were not decided on this motion. The judge said his decision concerned discovery and had nothing to do with the merits of the underlying case.
The dispute followed earlier discovery orders, including an order by Birmingham J. in October 2013 and a direction for further and better discovery by Mr Justice Ryan in January 2014. Green Pastures argued that Aurivo’s later discovery remained inadequate, pointing to records required under the Department of Agriculture’s milk quota handbook and alleging that fuller disclosure was needed to examine whether quota had been handled lawfully.
Aurivo said it had disclosed all documents within the category. Its evidence described three ways farmers could obtain additional quota: a Department-run trading scheme, a temporary leasing scheme, and a flexi-milk scheme. Aurivo said it did not decide allocations under the trading scheme, had disclosed relevant documents for temporary leasing, and had made no flexi-milk allocations since 2004.
The judge accepted that the category was directed at Aurivo’s methods for determining allocations, rather than the outcomes, application forms or general records of milk supply and quota. He said the category did not entitle Green Pastures to inspect Aurivo’s records generally to check its compliance with regulations or search for possible irregularities. Discovery had to relate to the issues in the case and to the defined category.
Mr Justice Ryan rejected the allegation that Aurivo had deliberately misconstrued the order to evade its obligations. He said he was satisfied that Green Pastures’ interpretation of the category was misconceived, so the motion had to fail. He added that even if Green Pastures’ interpretation had been correct, he would have ordered further and better discovery rather than striking out Aurivo’s defence. The underlying claim remains unresolved by this ruling.