A kiwifruit labour company and its sole director have been penalised $100,000 by the Employment Relations Authority after being found to have underpaid three employees over several years.
Bay of Plenty company Asad Horticulture was ordered to pay $70,000 for breaching minimum employment standards and for being in arrears with paying the employees' holiday pay entitlements.
The company's sole director and shareholder, Mohammad Asaduzzaman, must also pay $30,000 for the same breaches.
The penalties will be paid in quarterly instalments of $5000 each by Asad Horticulture and Asaduzzaman.
Following an agreement with the labour inspectorate, the affected employees have been paid $45,170 in arrears so far by the company and its owner.
Asad Horticulture was put into liquation in August with an Official Assignee appointed.
Auckland-based cloud computing and data centre business Plan B has been acquired by ASX-listed Atturra for $20 million, with an earn-out of up to $4.5m in cash.
Plan B owns and operates a national network of five primary data centres – across both of New Zealand’s islands – which are interconnected through a high-speed network backbone, according to a statement from Atturra. It noted Plan B has a “very high level of recurring revenue with a diverse and loyal customer base across the ANZ region”, and that the acquisition would increase the service offering and geographical and customer coverage in Atturra’s managed services business.
Companies Office records show Plan B was 40%-owned by Growth Fund VCLP GF 3 LP, 30.5% by a company owned by Ian and Kate Forrester, and 14.9% by Australian company Archer Growth Custodians, among others.
Plan B CEO Frazer Scott said his team remained committed to the business, and its customers would benefit from Atturra’s capabilities and resources.