Listen Now: 
Prominent Bay of Plenty Maori businesswoman Bev Adlam is to appeal a Maori Land Court judgment that stripped her of the profits from developing geothermal power stations on family land at Kawerau.
The court last month ordered her to pay back $14.5 million to the Bath Trust (formerly the Savage Papakainga Land Trust).
This included rentals from water used for a geothermal power station built by Bay of Plenty Energy in the 1990s, and the profits from the $42 million sale of the nearby Geothermal Developments power station to the Eastland Group in 2010.
Judge Craig Coxhead said as a trustee of the Bath Trust Ms Adlam was not entitled to developer’s fees.
In her appeal Ms Adlam says the judge got the facts wrong, and that without her contribution there would have been no profits for anyone.
She says she was a trustee of the Bath trust but not the neighbouring Farm Trust where the Geothermal Developments plant was built, so she has no obligation to that trust.
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