The case hinged on whether Whakaari Management — which granted access to the volcano to tourists and scientific groups, collecting fees for permits — should have been in charge of safety at the volcano site under New Zealand’s workplace health and safety laws.
The release of the decision followed a three-day hearing last October for the owners’ company at the High Court in the city of Auckland where they appealed the charges laid by New Zealand's workplace health and safety regulator following the 2019 eruption of Whakaari, also known as White Island.
The company, Whakaari Management — run by three brothers who own the active volcano on New Zealand's North Island — was ordered in March 2024 to pay millions of dollars in fines and restitutions to the victims of the eruption, who were mostly U.S. and Australian cruise ship passengers on a walking tour.
The owners of an island volcano in New Zealand where 22 tourists and local guides died in an eruption had their criminal conviction for failing to keep visitors safe thrown out by a judge on Friday.
In Friday's written ruling, Justice Simon Moore ruled the company did not have a duty under the relevant law to ensure that the walking tour workplace was without risks to health and safety.
