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Electricity Industry Act 2010

Separation of distribution from certain generation - Enforcement and general provisions - Enforcement and penalties for this Part

80: Pecuniary penalties

You could also call this:

“Money fines for breaking electricity industry rules”

If you break a rule in this part of the law, the High Court can make you pay money to the government. This is called a pecuniary penalty. The court decides how much you have to pay.

If you’re a person, you can’t be made to pay more than $500,000 for each time you break a rule.

If you’re a company, you might have to pay more. The most you could pay for each time you break a rule is either $10 million or three times the money you made from breaking the rule. If they can’t figure out how much money you made, you might have to pay 10% of all the money your company and its related companies make.

When the court is deciding if you should pay and how much, they use the same level of proof as in other non-criminal court cases.

The court thinks about a lot of things when deciding if you should pay and how much. They look at what you did wrong, how bad it was, if anyone was hurt because of it, why you did it, and if you’ve done something like this before.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM2634474.

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Part 3 Separation of distribution from certain generation
Enforcement and general provisions: Enforcement and penalties for this Part

80Pecuniary penalties

  1. If the High Court is satisfied on the application of the Authority that a person has breached a provision of this Part, the court may order the person to pay to the Crown a pecuniary penalty that the court determines to be appropriate.

  2. The amount of any pecuniary penalty must not, in the case of an individual, exceed $500,000 in respect of each act or omission.

  3. The amount of any pecuniary penalty must not, in the case of a body corporate, exceed, in respect of each act or omission, the greater of—

  4. $10 million; or
    1. either,—
      1. if it can be readily ascertained and if the court is satisfied that the contravention occurred in the course of producing a commercial gain, 3 times the value of any commercial gain resulting from the contravention; or
        1. if the commercial gain cannot be readily ascertained, 10% of the turnover of the body corporate and all of its interconnected bodies corporate (within the meaning of the Commerce Act 1986) (if any).

        2. In any proceedings under this section for a pecuniary penalty, the standard of proof is the standard of proof applying in civil proceedings.

        3. In determining whether to make a pecuniary penalty order and, if so, the amount of the order, the court must have regard to all relevant matters, including—

        4. the nature and extent of the act or omission:
          1. the nature and extent of any loss or damage suffered by any person as a result of the act or omission:
            1. the circumstances in which the act or omission took place:
              1. whether the person has previously been found by the court in proceedings under this Part (or any predecessor to this Part) to have engaged in any similar conduct.

                Compare
                Notes
                • Section 80(3)(b)(ii): amended, on , by section 29 of the Electricity Industry Amendment Act 2022 (2022 No 46).