A practical New Zealand guide to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA): applications, case management, evidence, witness statements, investigation meetings, remedies, costs and preparation.

A Full Court will hear a preliminary issue in Top Produce and Bhatia on whether section 12A of the Wages Protection Act can apply to employment premiums paid outside New Zealand.

The Employment Court refused a substantially late challenge. That procedural result does not determine the disputed accounting, liquidation, disclosure, company-law and recovery questions that sat beneath the proceeding.

A statement of the public record concerning Joyce v Ultimate Siteworks, Menzies v Corrigan, reporting about NZBA, and commentary about employment advocates: what was actually decided, what I dispute, and what remains unresolved.

Menzies v Corrigan shows how one liquidator report comment about "excessive drawings", later financial disclosure routed through Catherine Stewart Barrister's office, and disputed accounting material became central to orders against a company director personally.

EMA has argued that employment advocates contribute to delay, cost, escalation and poor settlement behaviour. Those concerns deserve scrutiny, but an employer-member survey is not independent proof of advocate-specific systemic harm. The wider public criticism is also internally inconsistent: Graeme Colgan criticised no-win-no-fee incentives for allegedly encouraging early, cheap settlements, while EMA's later campaign, publicly advanced by Mauro Barsi and others, points to delay, escalation and inflated demands. Regulation should follow independent evidence, not professional title or employer-side dissatisfaction.