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Employment Relations Act 2000

Additional provisions relating to enforcement of employment standards - Liability of persons involved in breach, bodies corporate, and principals

142ZA: Conduct of directors, employees, or agents attributed to body corporate or other principal

You could also call this:

“A company or boss can be held responsible for what their workers or helpers do when acting for them.”

When a company does something, it’s not always the whole company doing it. Sometimes it’s just one person who works for the company. This law says that if a director, employee, or agent of a company does something for the company, it’s treated as if the whole company did it. This applies when the person is acting within their authority or when they’re following instructions from someone else in the company who has authority.

The same idea applies to people who aren’t companies. If you’re not a company, but you have employees or agents, their actions can be treated as your actions. This happens when they’re working for you within their authority, or when they’re following instructions from you or from one of your employees or agents who has authority.

This law helps to make sure that companies and other employers are responsible for what their people do when they’re working. It means you can’t avoid responsibility by saying it was just one person’s action - if that person was working for you, it’s treated as if you did it yourself.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM6803105.

Topics:
Work and jobs > Worker rights
Business > Fair trading
Rights and equality > Anti-discrimination
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142Z: State of mind of directors, employees, or agents attributed to body corporate or other principal, or

“A company or boss can be held responsible for what their workers think or do while working for them.”

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142ZB: Proceedings in which defences apply, or

“This explains when you can use special reasons to defend yourself if you're accused of not giving workers what they're legally owed.”

Part 9A Additional provisions relating to enforcement of employment standards
Liability of persons involved in breach, bodies corporate, and principals

142ZAConduct of directors, employees, or agents attributed to body corporate or other principal

  1. Conduct engaged in on behalf of a body corporate by any of the following must be treated, for the purposes of this Act, as having been engaged in also by the body corporate:

  2. a director, an employee, or an agent of the body corporate who is acting within the scope of his, her, or its actual or apparent authority:
    1. any other person at the direction or with the consent or agreement (whether express or implied) of a director, an employee, or an agent of the body corporate, given within the scope of the actual or apparent authority of the director, employee, or agent.

      1. Conduct engaged in on behalf of a person other than a body corporate (A) by any of the following must be treated, for the purposes of this Act, as having been engaged in also by A:

      2. an employee or an agent of A who is acting within the scope of his, her, or its actual or apparent authority:
        1. any other person who is acting at the direction or with the consent or agreement (whether express or implied) either of A or of an employee or an agent of A, given within the scope of the actual or apparent authority of the employee or agent.

          Notes
          • Section 142ZA: inserted, on , by section 19 of the Employment Relations Amendment Act 2016 (2016 No 9).