The Powdergate dairy scandal is set to resurface again when one of the men charged - but not convicted - in the case sues Fonterra in the Employment Court.
Former Fonterra executive Sean Robert Miller has won the right to take a case in the court over his claim that Fonterra Co-operative Group failed to indemnify him for losses arising from the criminal charges laid against him as a result of his employment.
Employment Relations Authority member Rosemary Monaghan ruled Mr Miller's case - and a plethora of applications by Fonterra to have the claim stuck out, disputes over legal limitation, and a counterclaim by the dairy giant - should be determined by the Employment Court.
Mr Miller was one of seven men convicted after a multi-million dollar scam enabled executives to rort Dairy Board controls on milkpowder exports and illicitly export as much as 10,000 tonnes valued at $75 million in 270 separate shipments of product between January 1997 and October 23, 2001.
Six men who admitted their role were fined a total of $58,5000 five years after the first charges were laid: Paul Henry Marra, Malcolm Alexander McCowan, Terence David Walter, William Ross Cottee, Stephen Ross Wackrow, and William Geoffrey Winchester, claimed repackaging and relabelling milk powder to get around export regulations was common.
They said others who did the same thing had blossoming careers in Fonterra, and the sentencing judge said he had "an uncomfortable feeling that others involved in similar operations may have escaped prosecution".
In 2007, the seventh person charged, Mr Miller, changed his plea to guilty just as his trial was due to start. He was discharged without conviction, and ordered to pay $6000 towards the cost of prosecution.
The Dairy Board went out of existence in 2001, when it merged with Kiwi Co-operative Dairies and the New Zealand Dairy Group to become Fonterra.