Leighton Associates

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

Five years ago, we reported on an employment matter that was brewing, involving lay employment advocate Allan Halse (who specialises in workplace bullying) and Hamilton City Council which was his employer for six years until January 2014. Dragging up the ancient past   14 January 2021 “Hamilton City Council is suing former employee Allan Halse for allegedly breaching a non-disparagement clause in a settlement agreement. The original dispute officially ended on 14 February 201

A few weeks ago, I found myself staring at yet another set of company records where IRD debt had metastasised from a manageable shortfall into something terminal. The pattern is depressingly familiar: a slow month, a decision to defer PAYE "just this once," and then, six months later, a balance that's doubled while the directors weren't watching. It got me thinking about a question that rarely gets asked directly: purely from a cost of capital perspective, how expensive is

A nearly one month stint as a farm worker ended in strange circumstances in late 2023.  Mr Huriwaka’s job “ was full time and involved spraying, weed removal, tractor maintenance and other general farm work ”, according to a determination of the Employment Relations Authority. 2026-NZERA-8.pdf  (7 January 2026) No issues had been raised about Mr Huriwaka’s performance. There was no employment agreement between Mr Huriwaka and Walton Mountain Ltd (the employer), and the dismi

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”