Sanja Marin

Senior Associate

+64 21 792 057
+64 9 374 7198
Auckland
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Top expertise

Health & Safety
Employment
Workplace investigations
Public Law
Litigation & Dispute Resolution

Sanja has been at the forefront of health and safety law for over a decade. She is a specialist health and safety lawyer with significant experience across New Zealand and Australian jurisdictions.

Sanja has previously worked as a prosecutor for WorkSafe New Zealand and the New South Wales health and safety regulator in Australia.

Sanja provides proactive health and safety advice, training sessions and workshops, legal support during health and safety incident investigations, and legal representation in court.

 

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Sanja has over 12 years’ experience as prosecutor. She has previously worked for the Office of the Auckland Crown Solicitor, and the Office of the Wellington Crown Solicitor. Sanja has also acted as a legal representative for the Civil Aviation Authority and Maritime New Zealand in health and safety prosecutions. Sanja has also worked as a senior legal advisor in a previous role at WorkSafe providing legal advice on commercial, operational, regulatory, legislative, public law, and criminal law matters.

Clients appreciate Sanja’s broad experience and her ability to provide commercially astute, and strategic advice in all areas of health and safety– while effectively managing their legal and commercial risks. Client’s find Sanja thoughtful and engaging, and admire her unwavering commitment to advancing health and safety performance in Aotearoa.

Sanja has expertise to assist clients across all industry sectors:

Advisory
  • Proactive health & safety compliance advice including good governance advice.
  • Reviewing health and safety policies, and governance frameworks.
  • Reviewing board reports to determine compliance with officer due diligence verification requirements.
  • Health and safety system reviews, and gap analyses.
  • Health and safety wellbeing and cultural reviews.
  • Providing advice on contractual matters concerning health and safety.
  • Advising on innovative and transformational health and safety projects and programmes.
  • Advising on compliance requirements including requirements for authorisations, licences, and certificates of competence under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 suite of regulations.
Reactive
  • Legal representation in court.
  • Providing advice and legal representation during WorkSafe’s investigations, and enforcement activities.
  • Enforceable undertakings.
  • Health and safety incident investigations.
  • Engaging and liaising with technical experts.
  • Advising on the enforceability of improvement notices and prohibition notices. This includes assisting with internal reviews and appeals to the District Court.
Practical value add

Sanja is able to provide training and support to organisations regarding: 

  • Practical application of the officer due diligence duty for boards and senior leadership teams.
  • How management teams can support officers in the business to meet their due diligence obligations.
  • WorkSafe investigations.  
  • Effective contractor management.
  • Mock trials and mock regulatory interviews

Recent highlights

  • Successfully advocated for a project order as an alternative sentencing measure, leading to one of the lowest fines under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. This approach minimised the financial penalty and also reinforced meaningful compliance and safety improvements within the relevant industry.
  • Acting for clients from a range of industry sectors in serious incident investigations leading to no charges being filed by the health and safety regulator.
  • Providing advice regarding the applicability of the HSWA to a range of industry sectors, and officer due diligence obligations under HSWA.
  • Providing advice on an award nominated game that teaches the understanding of risk.
  • Advising on contractual matters regarding a quad bike simulator.
  • Reviewing health and safety policies and procedures for a large international organisation.
  • Providing advice on the certificate of competence regime including the ‘fit and proper person’ assessment under the HSWA (Mining Operations and Quarrying Operations) Regulations 2016.
  • Advising on the Approved Code of Practice for Loading and Unloading Cargo at Ports on Ships.
  • Advising on the extraterritorial application of HSWA to a New Zealand based business.
  • Drafting safe work instruments and amendment safe work instruments (secondary legislation).
  • Advising on exemption applications made under HSWA and the HSWA (Hazardous Substances) Regulations 2017.
  • Advising on regulatory reforms and enforcement powers of affected regulators.

We're driven by our values

They drive our client relationships and connections with our community, and underpin our achievements.

He tāngata

  • Guest lecturer at the University of Auckland on the health and safety section of the Advanced Employment Law course
  • Founder of the ‘Health and Safety Forum’ 
  • Co-author of a conference paper ‘In a tight spot: Individuals convicted as officers under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.’

Enterprising

  • Member of the ‘The Law Association’ Health and Safety Committee

Excellence

  • Clients consistently provide excellent feedback about Sanja’s presentations, including:
  • ““Excellent session and delivery.” 
  • “The board really enjoyed the presentation and have a number of takeaways to continue to frame our questioning and remaining curious!”
  • “Great presentation with useful information and cases.”

How can we help?

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  • © Duncan Cotterill
  • 2025