On the last Wednesday of August, Erica Stanford declared that a visa allowing overseas people to buy into existing NZ businesses would be available from November. This is the first step in replacing the hopeless Entrepreneur visa scheme.

There are 2 options for people to purchase a whole business, or at least 25% of one. The financial outlay grants a Work Visa followed by Residence if they meet the following:

• $1 million enables one to apply for Residence after 3 years if they can show they have kept the business profitable; or
• $2 million allows a fast-track to Residence after only 1 year. Residence remains conditional until the applicant proves that they have run the business successfully for 3 years in total.

Buyers must invest in a business which has been running for 5 years and has at least 5 full-time staff, and they must create at least 1 new job for a New Zealander.

For some years it has been said that many long-standing business owners will have to close down if they can't find a buyer for their business when they retire. Jobs will be lost, and the economy will suffer, if this is not remedied in some way. The Business Investor Visa could go some way to address this. For those considering succession planning, this may be light at the end of the tunnel.

We have been called in to help several employers who have been investigated by the MBIE Labour Inspectors and Immigration New Zealand about potential breaches of employment and immigration law. This can be a potentially damaging situation.

Even if the company or its Directors are not prosecuted or given infringement notices, employer accreditation can be cancelled. If that happens, existing migrant workers can stay on their visas but the company will find it hard to renew their accreditation, and can't get any more Job Tokens to hire new staff from overseas.

Quite often, investigations begin because someone has made a claim to the MBIE Labour Inspectorate that they were exploited in their job. We have seen cases where the employer, without any plan to exploit their staff, has not handled the employment arrangements well, which has opened them up to accusations that they have breached Employment Agreements and/or the minimal wage rules.

In other cases, companies have enabled staff to breach the conditions of their Work Visa by working in a different location to the one printed on their visa. Technically, this is an offence under the Immigration Act 2009 which can result in a maximum fine of $50,000, although INZ is now using instant infringement notices to penalise employers. The infringement fines are smaller, but the damage is similar in that the business acquires a bad record which makes it difficult for it to hire migrants in the future.

Prevention is better than cure. If you suspect that you might be breaking the law, it may be a much cheaper and less damaging option to contact us for a discussion, rather than leaving it to chance.