ERA finds Auckland pizza chain directors personally liable for employment premium and wage breaches
Two directors of an Auckland pizza restaurant chain have been ordered to repay nearly $40,000 after the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) found they received an illegal employment premium from a migrant worker's family and underpaid two employees in breach of minimum wage laws.
The company and its two directors were found to have breached multiple employment standards following a Labour Inspectorate investigation.
The case began when two Indian migrants were recruited to work at an Auckland pizza restaurant's Northcote store ahead of its opening in early 2023.
Both employees were interviewed in February 2023 and verbally offered roles, subject to obtaining valid Accredited Employer Work visas.
Shortly after, the father of one of the employees transferred $20,000 into each director's personal bank account, totalling $40,000. The directors claimed the funds were passed on to an immigration agent to cover visa costs.
The Labour Inspectorate received a formal complaint from one of the employees in October 2023 and launched a wider investigation the following month.
A draft investigation report was sent to the respondents in October 2024, with the final report issued in February 2025. The investigation meeting was deferred three times before proceedings took place across January, March, and April 2026.
The ERA's findings
The Authority rejected the directors' immigration agent explanation outright. It found no documentation supporting the agent's involvement, no evidence of licensed immigration work, and no invoices for services rendered.
ERA Member Helen van Druten noted that neither director questioned why a sum of $40,000 was required when, by one director's own admission, immigration costs typically run to between $4,000 and $5,000.
Critically, a WhatsApp message sent by one of the directors to an employee on the day the payment was made, confirming receipt of the transfer and urging him to "come now quickly," was cited as evidence directly linking the payment to employment.
The ERA was satisfied that the payment met the definition of an employment premium: it was a condition of obtaining employment and provided no benefit to the employee beyond securing the job.
On wages, the ERA found that variation agreements signed by both employees on their first day, reducing contracted hours from 40 to 30 per week, were unenforceable.
"Both employees were new to the country; it was their first day of employment and neither employee was given a reasonable opportunity to consider the variation document before signing," van Druten wrote in the decision.
The Authority ordered the company to pay one employee $7,245.20 gross plus eight per cent holiday pay, and the other $6,945.20 gross plus eight per cent holiday pay, in wage arrears.
The company was also ordered to repay $39,250, the premium amount less a $750 visa application fee, to the employee's father.
Both directors were found personally liable under the Employment Relations Act 2000 and may be required to meet the company's obligations from their own funds if the company is unable to pay.
