The Insolvency Practitioners Bill was first introduced to Parliament in April 2010. The original aim of the Bill was to establish a “negative licensing system” for insolvency practitioners, with the Registrar of Companies having the power to ban people from acting as a liquidator or More »

This new judgment had made a significant change to the law of defamation. It has created a new public interest defence, replacing the former defence of qualified privilege as set out in Lange v Atkinson . Background Sir Edward Durie is a retired High Court Judge and at all relevant times co-chair More »

Data breaches revealed by Z Energy and Ticketmaster in the past few days have provided a salient reminder that they can affect any of us at any time. Unfortunately, disclosures of privacy breaches are often belated, depriving individuals of the chance to take any steps such as password changes to More »

When Stadium Southland’s roof collapsed following heavy snowfall in 2010, the finger was pointed squarely at the Invercargill City Council (Council). How could such an event occur under the watchful eye of local council, given the regulatory functions they are required to perform under the More »

The results of the Environment Canterbury monitoring programme at Yaldhurst have been released, in a report made available on Friday 22 June. The report focussed on dust which could have adverse health effects, in particular respirable crystalline silica dust ( RCS ). The report concluded that More »

The question of what a vendor or a real estate agent should tell a purchaser about potential methamphetamine contamination when selling a property has been brought sharply into focus by the release of Sir Peter Gluckman's report into methamphetamine contamination in residential properties. More »

With the change in Government, comes the customary change to employment laws. Below is a summary of the changes most relevant to the retail sector. 90 day trial period restricted to businesses with less than 20 employees The statutory 90 day trial period will become a thing of the past for More »

Many retailers require employees to be present before their store opens for a quick overview of the day ahead and some are often required to stay after hours at the end of the day for cashing up, or while the last customers make their way out of the store. Employees are often not paid for the extra More »

A new report by the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor Sir Peter Gluckman released this week suggests that the recently revised guidelines for decontamination of properties where methamphetamine has been smoked are too strict. Those standards were published by Standards New Zealand, after More »