Leighton Associates

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

Christmas Day 2025 fell on a Thursday, with many workplaces shutting down on Friday 19 th  (including the Employment Court).  But Sarah Kennedy-Martin, Member of the Employment Relations Authority, was busy. A determination of the Authority described what appears to be a live, but dysfunctional employment relationship between anonymised parties “VPS Ltd” and “SIU”. VPS LIMITED v SIU | Employment Relations Authority Dysfunctional for not much longer we bet – no employment rela

Remember the Mr Bates vs the Post Office  mini-series?  It screened in the UK on January 1-4, 2024 and in New Zealand three months later.  Between 1999 and 2015, nearly 1000 subpostmasters (mostly franchisees) were civilly and criminally prosecuted for fictitious accounting shortfalls in their branches, that were actually caused by faulty retail software that was supplied by Fujitsu. As the software problems were gradually discovered, they were covered up to protect the bran

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 (similar to the UK Employment Tribunal). The worker was anonymised to “VLO”

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