Leighton Associates

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

Hamilton employment advocate Allan Halse, who specialises in workplace bullying cases, was the target of a SLAPP masquerading as a gag enforcement brought by Hamilton City Council in early 2021. The Council won, and in February 2022 Halse was ordered to pay a $9,000 fine to the Crown. This type of litigation, with the government (including local) asserting its rights against the individual was very much a product of its time. Halse filed a challenge in the Employment Court

Auckland security guard Levi Menzies has one more shot at applying to the Employment Court for a finding that he shouldn’t have ended up personally owing over $50,000 for a 2022 employee grievance raised against his failing startup. After a tidy procedural loss last week, which was an application to extend time (by a whopping 9-10 months) to challenge a determination of the Employment Relations Authority (for the second time), Menzies intends to reactivate his judicial review

No article this time, just a YouTube slideshow with some of our favourite pics... Leighton Associates turns 7! - YouTube

On paper, it’s a fail. But it would have been a sin not to have tried. In 2022, two security guards fell out. One had worked for the other’s company for about six months. At the time, the company was technically insolvent and entered liquidation a few months after a personal grievance claim was raised. Right or wrong, the grievance did not die with the company and the former employee continued to incur legal costs. The Authority held an investigation meeting about the

On Monday, the Government committed up to $60 million to keep New Zealand's only cement manufacturing plant open. The more interesting number is the one Fletcher Building had already put on closing it: up to $345 million. Closing an industrial site isn't free. Fletcher's 2025 annual report broke the cost of walking away from the Portland plant near Whangārei into two parts. Up to $165 million is a non-cash impairment: the plant sits on the balance sheet as an asset, and clo

Former Christchurch city councillor and bar / restaurant owner Gordon Freeman managed to have one of his receptionists fined $500 for giving “only” two weeks’ notice instead of six, after she resigned in 2012. Then he got squeezed out of the industry. Freeman operated the Redwood Hotel / Sequoia 88 through his company G L Freeman Holdings Ltd, which ceased trading around 2015 and was struck off the Companies register soon after. A 2013 determination by Helen Doyle, Member of