A workplace death and health and safety rule violations sees a business facing the same confiscation laws as gangs
Fisher has revealed that police have restrained $11 million worth of assets belonging to the boss of Salter's Cartage, Ron Salter, saying his actions in ignoring the rules helped him build up a fortune Photo: Supplied
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009, it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs.
The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can't prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a $30,000 fine or five years in jail.
The proceeds from this are upwards of $80 million a year. When the Act was ammended last year, to draw in another estimated $25 million, the then-Justice minister's news release talked about organised crime, and making it harder for gangs and their leaders to benefit financially.
But in a twist that few saw coming, police are now targeting a business guilty of serious breaches of the Health and Safety Act, using the same legislation.
NZ Herald investigative reporter David Fisher has revealed that police have restrained $11 million worth of assets belonging to the boss of Salter's Cartage, Ron Salter, saying his actions in ignoring the rules helped him build up a fortune - and that fortune should now be taken away from him.
At the centre of the case is a 2015 incident in which one of Salter's employees was killed. WorkSafe ordered his business to be shut down, and in an 'egregious' breach of that order, he kept working. He paid more than $400,000 in fines and was sentenced to four and a half months of home detention, which he served.
Two years later, police laid fresh proceedings.
Now, the Court of Appeal has ordered that police must underwrite their case against Salters, so that if it fails, they pay for the Salters' losses caused by the police action.
The court had heard that the police action meant the company couldn't borrow money to expand, and if they tried to sell the business they would get less for it.
Today on The Detail David Fisher talks through the potential consequences of this action.
"Were the case against the Salters to be proved, then it would leave, I would think, many different businesses feeling extremely vulnerable. Because they could very much be the next one under the gun," he says.
Similar acts that could be used in this way include the Resource Management Act, the Fair Trading Act, the Tax Administration Act, the Financial Markets Conduct Act and the Land Transport Act.
"There's a whole swathe of different laws that businesses interact with on a daily basis, and many of those laws have strict liability offences in them. Those are offences you're either guilty or not, you don't get to put up a defence.
"So this is really fascinating because it would be really easy to find, if you were inclined to, $30,000 or more worth of offending to do with the Fair Trading Act, or the Resource Management Act. Dairy farms exceed $30,000 of business on any given day, really, and they deal with the Resource Management Act all the time. So were the case against the Salters to be proved then it would leave, I would think, many different businesses feeling extremely vulnerable, because they could very much be the next one under the gun."
Fisher thinks the police have a fair chance of succeeding, even though one judge has described the police approach as a 'novel' use of the law.
"I think the police have a good argument," he says.
"It was serious criminal offending. A young man died, and died in circumstances that were completely preventable.
"I also think there's something very compelling about Ron Salter's argument, and that is, 'I've served my time'."
The case is set down for seven weeks in October.
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