Queensland State Home Loans and Columbus Capital are due to lock horns again later this month in the NSW Supreme Court over an agreement governing the management rights of a portfolio of mortgages.The case has taken some time to move to a hearing, with Columbus waiting until last week to lodge its response to a statement of claim by QSHL, a company associated with non-bank home lender FirstMac. This was lodged with the court by QSHL back in August.The key documents lodged by each side have been sighted by Banking Day.In its initial statement, QSHL alleged Columbus "unilaterally" moved to change a crucial reference rate, the "mortgage manager delivery rate", in November 2012, after ANZ, which has an agreement with QSHL, sold its rights to the Origin wholesale mortgage origination program. (Increasing the MMDR without increasing the rate paid by borrowers has the effect of cutting total management fees payable.)One of QSHL's assertions is that the series of agreements and revisions around this management deal stretch back to 1992 and show an intention by all parties not to alter fees without QSHL's agreement (or that of its predecessors).The net result, to June this year, of the action taken by Columbus was a large cut in management fees otherwise paid to QSHL, which that firm estimates at about $50,000 per month.In its response, Columbus asserts that, firstly, the assignment by ANZ of its rights to the Origin wholesale mortgage origination program is valid, and QSHL should have signed off on the deal under the terms of the management agreement.A related point made by Columbus is that all previous negotiations are superseded by the most recent agreement, the one inked in 2008 between ANZ and QSHL. If that is accepted as being valid, Columbus asserts, under the 2008 agreement it has the right to re-set the MMDR.Further, Columbus says that as QSHL has not signed any documents necessary to give effect to the assignment of rights, it is not obliged to pay any monies to QSHL. (A sort of chicken and egg, or 'you can't have your cake and eat it, too' type approach).Columbus also took issue with QSHL's claim that it is "a matter of custom and practice" in the mortgage origination industry that fees and remuneration paid to originators cannot be unilaterally reduced by the lender after loans are settled.Some of the other statements in the Columbus response may have been made for strategic reasons, rather than to outline major points of law.For instance, Columbus says it does not agree with the section of QSHL's narrative that states that FirstMac's founder and managing director, Kim Cannon, controlled both National Equity Corporation Limited, the original manager of the portfolio of loans, and QSHL, a subsidiary which later took over mortgage origination and management from NECL. Nor does Columbus agree that Cannon "substantially" conducted the negotiations on each successive agreement or variation of terms with the lenders.Neither does Columbus agree with the contention, by QSHL, that ANZ agreed, by letter in 2000,