Leighton Associates

Employment law and AML research and reporting
Te Rangahau ture Mahi me te tari Purongo
Demystifying employment law since 2019

A recent determination of the Employment Relations Authority dismissed Hobby Zone’s claim against a former employee for his disparaging communications in a private chat group. You read that right – a retail worker who was 17 years old when he started working at retailer Hobby Zone’s Sylvia Park outlet over the summer of 2022/23 was the respondent in proceedings brought by the company in the Authority. The worker was anonymised to “VLO” which is three randomly generated letter

Inland Revenue has been getting tough on unpaid tax, after years of relative leniency.  This includes small companies that have been running at a loss and have GST and PAYE arrears. A recent RNZ article says that for every $1 spent on enforcement, around $12 is recovered. Inland Revenue says tax crackdown paying off | RNZ News In a voluntary liquidation the shareholder(s) usually appoint a private liquidator after paying an upfront fee.  However, there has been a recent incre

On the issue of the reduction of remedies for contribution in a personal grievance action, the Bill will remove s 123(1)(a) reinstatement and (c) distress compensation remedies entirely, for any employee’s contribution, no matter how minor the contribution may be.   That means any contributory conduct of an employee, no matter how minor, would block the usual significant tranche of remedies that lawyers and advocates seek for their employee clients. Let’s take a look at what

An Auckland man owned several restaurants and cafés on the North Shore and Hibiscus Coast, and sold two of them.  A recent determination of the Employment Relations Authority, which allocated random three-letter pseudonyms to all parties, indicates that the buyer and seller later fell out.  We don’t yet know what they fell out over, but the new owner targeted the seller with a smear campaign, and the Authority Member Eleanor Robinson ordered penalties of $15,000 (following an

A dodgy employment advocate with several aliases has been exposed by Stuff this morning: Brent Edwards? Brent Tomich? Brent Willis? A fraudster’s ever-changing identities and his new business | Stuff   (Tony Wall, 31 October 2025) We asked around, and Auckland advocate Lawrence Anderson remembered picking up a client in 2021, who was making an otherwise unremarkable claim over a disputed 90 day trial.  The matter settled in mediation. The employee client, “Ms S”, had previous

Grab the popcorn, readers.  The Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) raised a beef with journalist Sean Plunket, founding editor of The Platform. New Zealand media is dominated by left-leaning outlets, but The Platform, along with NewstalkZB and NBR, leans right. The BSA was formed in 1989 and is a disciplinary body granted powers under the Broadcasting Act 1989.  There was no Internet to speak of in those days. A lot of broadcast media has migrated to online delivery, so i