By Pattrick Smellie May 30 (BusinessDesk) - National Party leader Simon Bridges accused Treasury secretary Gabriel Makhlouf of “calling the police on the Opposition” over the website security flaw that allowed the National Party to gain access to Budget secrets. The Treasur...

By Pattrick Smellie May 30 (BusinessDesk) - Police investigating a leak of sensitive Budget information have determined that the Treasury's computer system was not 'hacked'. In a rocky start to what should have been a showcase day for the government's first 'Wellbeing' Budg...

By Gavin Evans May 29 (BusinessDesk) - Vector, the country’s biggest electricity distributor, has had its request to accelerate depreciation on its network assets turned down by the Commerce Commission. The company had sought a higher depreciation rate on its network assets...

By Gavin Evans May 29 (BusinessDesk) - Advent Gold has deferred plans for an initial share offer on the ASX following the government’s rejection of a land sale for a new tailings operation at OceanaGold’s Waihi mine. The firm, which has an exploration permit near Reefton an...

By Paul McBeth May 28 (BusinessDesk) - Eroad is playing down a claim that it's infringed someone's patent, saying it's so confident of its position that is hasn't made any provisions for the claim.  The logistics and fleet management technology firm said it might incur lega...

By Jenny Ruth May 27 (BusinessDesk) - The Commerce Commission has told Bank of New Zealand it has commenced an investigation into BNZ’s compliance with particular disclosure requirements under the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act 2003. BNZ discloses the investigati...

By Paul McBeth May 23 (BusinessDesk) - Spark New Zealand has been told off by the Commerce Commission for the way it hiked copper-line broadband prices last year when it didn't let customers know they could cancel their agreement.  The regulator sent a warning letter to the...

By Paul McBeth May 21 (BusinessDesk) - New Zealand shares fell, led lower by Chorus, after investors were spooked by potentially stricter regulation of its ultrafast broadband network than they'd anticipated.  The S&P/NZX 50 Index decreased 18.06 points, or 0.2 percent, to...

By Jenny Ruth May 21 (BusinessDesk) - Inland Revenue Commissioner Naomi Ferguson should have asked the courts for twice as much as it was awarded earlier this month against Eric Watson’s Cullen Group, according to a University of Auckland law professor. The High Court order...

By Rebecca Howard May 21 (BusinessDesk) - Synalit Milk has received a cease and desist letter regarding its Pokeno land but believes a practical solution is attainable.  Synlait has begun building a second nutritional powder manufacturing site that had been set to be commis...

By Rebecca Howard May 17 (BusinessDesk) - The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has revoked ANZ Bank New Zealand's accreditation to model its own operational risk capital requirement due to a "persistent failure" in its controls and attestation process. ANZ is one of four big ban...

By Rebecca Howard May 16 (BusinessDesk) - Synlait Milk said the registration process required to launch Munchkin Inc’s Grass Fed infant formula in the US has been put on hold to allow the company to look at other options.  Synlait "has been informed that the clinical study...

By Paul McBeth May 16 (BusinessDesk) - Excluding Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei Technologies risks driving up the cost of building a 5G mobile network and undermining competition in its development, according to a draft mobile market study.  Spark New Zealand had pl...

By Gavin Evans May 15 (BusinessDesk) - OMV says it supports greater disclosure of outages in the gas sector but is concerned some players may have unrealistic expectations of new rules intended to make that happen. New Zealand’s biggest gas producer says it is alive to the...

By Jenny Ruth May 15 (BusinessDesk) - Disclosure lies at the heart of New Zealand’s corporate regulatory systems but the regulators themselves have greatly undermined that principle more than once. The beauty of enforced disclosure is that it’s nice and cheap, and a strong...

By Jenny Ruth May 13 (BusinessDesk) - The Reserve Bank says it has received 90 formal submissions on its proposal to near double the minimum amount of tier 1 capital banks have to hold and is warning that submissions close this Friday. Meanwhile, ASB Bank’s Australian paren...

By Jenny Ruth May 13 (BusinessDesk) - Synlait Milk has landed itself in a right pickle after a Court of Appeal judgment that renders its new Pokeno factory in breach of covenants restricting use of that land to grazing, lifestyle farming and forestry. Synlait jumped the gun...

By Paul McBeth May 10 (BusinessDesk) - New Zealand insurers have been steered to lessons from Australia's royal commission on banking when responding to the "dire" findings of a local conduct and culture investigation earlier this year. Last week, officials from the Financi...

(Updates throughout to add further comments from Synlait and from the Court of Appeal judgment.) By Jenny Ruth May 10 (BusinessDesk) - Synlait Milk says it is confident it can find a solution to the ownership problem now afflicting most of the land on which its new Pokeno f...

By Jenny Ruth May 9 (BusinessDesk) - The High Court has permanently prohibited convicted Ponzi scheme operator Lance Jared Ryan from managing a company and banned his former co-defendant David Blake for 12 years. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment says thes...

By Nikki Mandow May 9 (BusinessDesk) - Changes to whistleblower legislation to make it easier for employees to report everything from bullying to fraud have been delayed. This also pushes back moves to potentially bring the private sector into a critical part of the legislatio...

By Paul McBeth May 8 (BusinessDesk) - Lawyers in the Mainzeal case were back in court today arguing whether the $36 million penalty handed down to directors of the failed construction company, including former Prime Minister Jenny Shipley, should attract up to six years' inter...