SA Supreme Court orders retrial of $1m dispute over defunct Planet nightclub due to crossed-out word on long-missing contract

IT WAS the lawsuit that had it all — footballers, a cricketer, a tennis player, a top lawyer and a State Government high-flyer feuding over a nightclub — and, a decade on, it has been reborn.

IT WAS the lawsuit that had it all — a footballer, a cricketer, a tennis player, a top lawyer, and a State Government high-flyer feuding over a nightclub — and, a decade on, it has been reborn.

The million-dollar stoush between Players Pty Ltd and Clone Pty Ltd, over the now-defunct Planet nightclub, has been revived all because of three letters on a missing document.

In a judgment published Friday, the Supreme Court said Clone’s lawyers had engaged in malpractice by failing to disclose a document on which the word “nil” was crossed out.

That amendment, the court found, may have tipped the original trial in favour of Players — completely reversing ownership of the club.

The judgment revives a bitter clash over The Planet’s $1 million hotel licence and 40-poker machine licence that dates back to the early 2000s.

The site was leased by Players, comprising former Adelaide Crow Chris McDermott, former Australian cricketer Tim May, former tennis coach Darren Cahill and lawyer Greg Griffin.

The owner of the site was Clone — the family company of former State Government’s Economic Development Board member Fiona Roche.

Ms Roche and her sisters were famously left “30 pieces of silver” as “blood money due to Judas” in the will of their mother, former Lady Mayoress Valmai Roche, in 2010.

Two years later, they successfully overturned that will and, instead of receiving $1.50 each, took control of their mother’s $3.5 million estate.

Both Players and Clone claimed ownership of the hotel and poker machine licences but, after a 28-day trial in 2005, the court ruled in favour of Clone.

Subsequent appeals by Players were unsuccessful — until the judgment published on Friday.

In the judgment, Auxilliary Justice Kim Hargrave said one of the most important issues at trial was a line in the contract between the parties containing the word “nil”.

Players claimed its members had crossed out the word, signalling their refusal to transfer the licences to Clone at the end of the lease “for nil consideration”.

Justice Hargrave said the original trial had been unable to determine that issue as only two copies of the contract existed, and both were photocopies.

However, he said Clone’s lawyers had known of a third copy during the trial but “chose not to” inform anyone of its existence, “shutting their eyes” to its relevance.

Justice Hargrave said that gave rise to “serious allegations of professional impropriety or reckless behaviour” by those lawyers, but had not resulted in the trial being “misled”.

“Clone’s malpractice in failing to discover the third copy of (the) agreement was, on its own, sufficiently culpable to justify ordering a new trial,” he said.

“I find that Clone engaged in serious malpractice by its reckless failure to discover the third copy ... the actions of (the lawyers) fell far short of the conduct to be expected.

He said having the third copy during the trial “may have tipped the balance in favour of Players”, warranting a rehearing.

“Clone’s culpability is sufficiently serious that the interests of justice should prevail,” he said.

A date for the retrial has yet to be set.