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Customer and Product Data Act 2025

Regulatory and enforcement matters - Civil liability - Pecuniary penalty order

70: When High Court may make pecuniary penalty order

You could also call this:

“When the court can make someone pay money for breaking rules”

The High Court can order someone to pay a penalty to the Crown if they think that person has broken, tried to break, or been involved in breaking certain rules. This is called a pecuniary penalty order. The chief executive can ask the High Court to make this order.

You can get this penalty for three reasons:

  1. If you break a civil liability rule
  2. If you try to break a civil liability rule
  3. If you help someone else break a civil liability rule

However, the High Court can’t make this order if you break, try to break, or help break a specific type of rule about sharing information. You can find more about this in section 35 of the law.

When we talk about ‘relevant conduct’, we mean the actions that led to breaking the rule, trying to break it, or helping to break it.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=LMS911701.

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Part 4 Regulatory and enforcement matters
Civil liability: Pecuniary penalty order

70When High Court may make pecuniary penalty order

  1. The High Court may, on the application of the chief executive, order a person to pay to the Crown the pecuniary penalty that the court determines to be appropriate if the court is satisfied that the person has—

  2. contravened a civil liability provision; or
    1. attempted to contravene a civil liability provision; or
      1. been involved in a contravention of a civil liability provision.

        1. However, an order may not be made for a contravention, an attempted contravention, or an involvement in a contravention of a specified disclosure requirement (see section 35).

        2. In this subpart, relevant conduct means the conduct giving rise to the contravention, attempted contravention, or involvement in the contravention referred to in subsection (1).