Leighton Associates

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

With company liquidations at a 15-year high, what happens when there is an existing personal grievance claim against a company that is put into liquidation? It makes economic sense that any personal grievance against that company dies with it. However, legally there is a strong distinction between wage arrears and holiday pay, and personal grievance remedies and since 2016 it has been possible for employees to pursue the director(s) for wage arrears and holiday pay if these

The Federal Trade Commission has ordered Rollins Inc. – one of the largest pest-control companies in the United States – to stop enforcing noncompete agreements against more than 18,000 employees nationwide.  The agency also sent warning letters to 13 other companies in the pest control industry that employ many thousands more workers, urging the firms to review their employment agreements to ensure they do not contain any unfair or anticompetitive noncompete provisions. The

Liquidators do a thankless job.  They are called in to salvage what is left of a company after it has failed.  Sometimes the company will have no assets at all, meaning there is nothing left to cover the liquidator’s fees.  Why on earth would anyone do this for a living? Well, liquidators have a powerful weapon in their arsenal.  Under sections 292 and 293 of the Companies Act 1993, a liquidator can set aside an insolvent transaction or charge that has been entered into withi

The Auckland High Court has upheld the initial guilty finding and sentence of former Port of Auckland Chief Executive, Tony Gibson, after stevedore, Pala'amo Kalati, was killed at the port in August 2020 by a falling container. The Auckland High Court has upheld the initial guilty finding and sentence of former Port of Auckland Chief Executive, Tony Gibson, after stevedore, Pala'amo Kalati, was killed at the port in August 2020 by a falling container. "Our thoughts continue t

For the first quarter of 2026 we have had the highest first quarter in the last 10 years for winding up applications. Comparatively we have had more winding up applications in 3 months than we had in all of 2020. March had 90 applications for the month down on both January and February but this is a normal occurrence for March as winding up application drop off as we head into the end of financial year. IRD remains the main driver of winding up applications making up 73% of t

Last month, we reported that a charity called Rapid Relief Team had filed a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) in California, which is so conspicuously petty that Marc Randazza, lead lawyer for the “defendant” Canadian podcaster Cheryl Bawtinheimer, describes it as bogus.  Ostensibly the claim was for a technical copyright infringement. The link to our blog is here: The worst SLAPP we’ve ever seen  (23 February 2026) We have not contacted Randazza because