Legal articles & publications

In its first case considering sentencing under the Fair Trading Act 1986 (FTA), the Court of Appeal has significantly reduced the fines imposed by the High Court in Commerce Commission v Steel & Tube Holdings Ltd [2020] NZCA 549.

When an insured suffers a loss and discovers that their insurance doesn’t cover it, this usually comes as an unpleasant surprise. In some cases, they may look to recover their loss from their broker.

In our experience, the lead up to Christmas and the New Year is when employers often look ahead to their staffing needs for the new year. Often, it is at this time that employers identify employment issues.

The recent High Court decision, Ngata Maru Trust v Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Whaia Maia Limited [2020] NZHC 2768, provides guidance to decision makers presented with conflicting iwi claims on proposals for resource consent. We set out the key takeaways decision makers should keep in mind.

In the lead-up to Christmas and with increased competition for discretionary spend (thanks to COVID-19), retailers must be careful when adopting pricing and promotional campaigns and ensure the point-of-sale pricing is accurate. This recent case highlights the need to quickly respond to customer complaints and correct pricing errors or risk substantial penalties, even where the financial gain to the retailer is minimal.

Often, after running a training session for real estate agents, the audience has questions for me. I always enjoy this bit – agents deal with all sorts of characters, and often find themselves in the middle of ‘eccentric’ vendors and purchasers. Interestingly though, three times in the last year, I’ve been asked about the extent to which agents need to disclose grisly details of a property’s past. One agent’s client thought their 1950s bungalow might be haunted.

The NBR has recently published two articles on two cases currently before the courts (Decmil NZ and Downey Construction) relating to the retention regime under the Construction Contracts Act 2002 (Act).

In the aftermath of Auckland’s second “lockdown”, there has been significant media attention regarding the breakdown of rental negotiations between commercial landlords and tenants, which in many cases has resulted in disputes and subsequent cancellations of leases by landlords.

In late 2018, the Commerce Commission began investigating Greenstar Holding Limited (Greenstar) and SDL Trading Limited (SDL) due to concerns that they each supplied retailers with children’s toys that did not meet product safety standards.

A full court of the Employment Court is to consider the Employment Relations Authority’s ruling on whether an employer can reduce an employee’s salary without consent after accepting the Covid-19 Wage Subsidy.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has released a guidance note (Note) to clarify their expectations around influencer advertising. Its purpose is to benefit consumers with increased certainty and transparency when advertisers use influencers to promote their products or services.

On 14 August 2020, the Government announced an extension of the COVID-19 Alert Level Three restrictions for Aucklanders and the Alert Level Two restrictions for all other parts of New Zealand. At this stage, those restrictions will remain in place until 26 August 2020.