Her father made her a director at 18, then took the kiwifruit company to the Authority
Authority member Simon Greening ruled on 9 July 2026 that a nominee director installed at 18 is not personally liable for her company's wage breaches.
When F100 Limited, a small kiwifruit contracting company in the Tauranga region, was incorporated in September 2016, its sole director was 18. She was the daughter of the man who ran the business, and she told the Authority she had never set foot on an orchard and understood little of what her father did day to day.
Years later it was her father, the company's supervisor, and her stepmother, its bookkeeper, who took F100 to the Authority. In November 2025 the pair sought wage arrears and unpaid statutory entitlements after the business stopped operating around 2023. F100 did not appear at the investigation.
The father claimed he was owed overtime of at least 10 hours a week across the seven years he worked for F100, on top of the 70 hour weeks his payslips recorded at $24 an hour. Greening was not persuaded, noting the father was responsible for his own time and for keeping the wages and time record book, which was never produced, and that there was no evidence he had raised any non payment with his daughter, the director, during his employment. The overtime claim failed.
The stepmother's claim succeeded in part. She said she had worked unpaid as bookkeeper from 2016, but Greening found she had assisted between 2016 and 2018 on the basis of a familial relationship, with no intention to create an employment relationship, and did not become an employee until September 2019. Her payslips did show F100 paid her $19 an hour for part of 2021, below the $20 minimum wage, and the company was ordered to pay the $1,560 shortfall.
Both were owed holiday pay. F100 had supplied no holiday or leave records, and there was no evidence either had taken paid leave. Greening ordered the company to pay the father $56,640 and the stepmother $33,744 in annual and public holiday pay. Greening found no evidence to support their sick leave claims.
Throughout, the daughter said she was "a director in name only", a role she said her father had arranged when she was 18. He denied organising her appointment. She said her involvement was limited to passing information to the company's accountant for tax purposes, that she did not control its bank accounts, and that she had not produced the payslips her father supplied to the Authority.
The remaining question was whether the daughter, as sole director, could be made personally liable for the company's breaches. Under section 142W of the Employment Relations Act 2000, a person is involved in a breach if they aided, abetted, counselled or procured a breach of an employment standard, and the provision leaves the Authority room to decide.
Greening declined to make her liable. He found she was effectively a nominee director, with her father managing the company and her stepmother handling the payroll, and no part for her in its day to day running. She was, he concluded, "not a person involved in a breach of employment standards".
