1,720,973 research outputs found
A Need for Change? New Zealand’s Financial Dispute Resolution Schemes
No full textFinancial dispute resolution is an integral part of any financial system; it ensures that consumers have access to fair redress, for example if their financial provider has failed to adequately support them or subjected them to irresponsible lending practices. NZ financial dispute resolution service has continued to evolve since its establishment to accommodate changes in the financial market. This has resulted in the existence today of four different external dispute resolution schemes. The operation of four schemes has caused debate on whether or not the framework is operating to the highest standard of efficiency to enable consumers to access fair and equitable redress when lodging a complaint against a financial provider. Financial mentors across New Zealand are strongly appealing for a legislative restructuring to disengage the current four schemes; urging to replace them with a single dispute resolution body.
This paper will analyse the current framework New Zealand has in place and analyse the different perspectives on whether legislative change is required. Part II will consider how our current system came to exist before moving on to consider the main issues that are found within the multi-scheme framework in Part III. Part IV analyses the benefits of moving to a single dispute resolution framework in the context of Australia and their recent move to the single-scheme Australian financial complaints authority. Part V will raise opposing arguments on the effectiveness of the current framework. Having analysed the different arguments on the performance of the current framework Part VI will propose an alternative solution that seeks to encompass both perspectives
Navigating Towards an Airworthy Protection Regime for New Zealand's Airline Passengers
No full textDelays and cancellations are a frequent occurrence in air travel, but passenger protections in New Zealand lag behind those in other jurisdictions such as the European Union and Canada. Concerns around airlines’ treatment of passengers were brought to the fore during the Covid-19 pandemic, but protections were not strengthened in the recent repeal of the Civil Aviation Act 1990 and enactment of the Civil Aviation Act 2023. The new Act provides insufficient protection to passengers, and New Zealand’s other consumer law is also inadequate and difficult to apply to an airline context. Neither set of law has a dispute resolution scheme that is fit for purpose. Public enforcement of relevant laws by regulators is limited to breaches of the Fair Trading Act 1986, largely for misleading or deceptive trading practices, and not specific obligations to passengers.
This paper examines the deficiencies in New Zealand’s airline passenger protection law and compares that law with the corresponding law in Australia, the European Union and Canada. It advocates for the making of regulations which provide for fixed amounts of compensation when a flight is delayed for controllable reasons, rather than laws which require a passenger to prove damages. That is consistent with the European and Canadian approaches. It also advocates for refunds to be made available to passengers where flights are cancelled or significantly delayed. To ensure that the new regulations are effective, this paper also advocates for an adjudicative dispute resolution scheme, funded by airlines according to their market share and the number of complaints received, with capacity for public enforcement (monetary fines) by the Commerce Commission
Exploiting the crowd: The New Zealand response to equity crowd funding
No full textThe crowd funding exclusion in the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 allows issuers, often innovative start-up businesses, to raise up to $2,000,000 in a 12 month period from retail investors through an internet platform provided by a licensed intermediary service, without the need for the product disclosure statement and on-line disclosures usually required under Part 3 of the Act. In order to protect the interests of investors in a market with a high risk of negligible return, other protections need to be provided. International jurisdictions have imposed investor caps, but New Zealand has failed to do so. This essay argues that, particularly in light of shortcomings with other aspects of crowd funding investor protections, a mandatory investor cap of five per cent of the amount being raised should be imposed, to protect investors both from the high risks of venture capital investing and from their own inexperience in this new and rapidly developing market
Regulation of prediction markets under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013
No full textThe Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 (FMC Act) represents the most substantial overhaul of New Zealand’s securities law in recent history. The regulation of derivatives in particular featured high on the agenda as an area in need of reform and, as a result, the FMC Act is much clearer than the Securities Markets Act 1988 with respect to typical derivative agreements. The focus of this paper, however, is on the atypical: the use of derivatives in prediction markets. With a study of New Zealand-based prediction market iPredict, this paper examines whether iPredict will be regulated under the FMC Act and, if so, how it will be regulated. The conclusion reached is that iPredict can operate under the FMC Act only if the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) declares that its contracts are derivatives and grants substantial exemptions from regulatory compliance. This paper then makes recommendations for a more coherent approach to the regulation of prediction markets under the FMC Act
A builder's duty of care - When should it apply to the directors and employees of companies involved in the creation of defective buildings?
No full textThis thesis considers the issue of when a tortious duty of care to prevent economic loss should be imposed on the company directors and employees who stand behind the complex structure of companies and contracts involved in the creation of a defective building. Set against the background of the leaky building crisis, and what are (it is argued) unfair litigation outcomes, the thesis traverses the emergence and development of the principles that underpin liability for negligence and negligent misstatement in respect of defective buildings. A review of the cases confirms that the concepts of control and general reliance are the basis of New Zealand law in this area. There follows a discussion of the difficult relationship between company law principles and negligence principles, and the role of assumption of responsibility in the law of negligence and negligent misstatement, including a discussion of developments in the leaky building litigation. The thesis advanced is that, in respect of the creation of defective buildings, the approach to the issue of whether to impose a duty of care on company directors and employees would benefit from placing significant weight on the factor of de facto control of the inputs that dictate the outcome of a building project, and on the lower level factor of a direct or indirect financial interest in the outcome of the project.
It is argued that the approach to imposing a duty of care should be the same for directors and employees and in respect of statements and actions. In cases where the evidence establishes that the financial interest factor is not present, this should give rise to an inference that the company director or employee does not have control of the inputs that dictate the outcome of the project, so that no duty of care arises. This would enable a director or employee to exit litigation by way of an application for summary judgment. This is intended to discourage the practice of joining minor parties to litigation for the purpose of extracting a precautionary settlement. If control of the inputs that dictate the outcome of a project can be established by inference from the existence of the financial interest factor, or by the other evidence, then the two stage approach to the imposition of a duty of care would require a consideration of other factors that might negate the duty, such as the contractual matrix
Getting a Fair Deal? The Commerce Commission’s Enforcement of Lender Responsibility Principles
No full textThe lender responsibility principles were introduced into the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act in 2015 and were intended to protect consumers from the conduct of unscrupulous lenders when entering into credit contracts. Under the CCCFA, the principles are enforced by the Commerce Commission. However, financial mentors have raised three main concerns regarding the Commission’s enforcement process. They are a lack of clarity around the law, the timeliness of investigations and enforcement actions and a lack of transparency in the process. This paper analyses the validity of these concerns and argues that the main issue in this process is the length of the investigations. On average, these investigations take 654 days and, during this time, lenders can continue to breach the principles as there are no interim protections for consumers. Reducing the time required for investigations is an important way to reduce harm within this sector. However, there are practical limitations on the ability of the Commerce Commission to investigate quickly. Therefore, this paper argues that complementary interim protections should be considered so that unscrupulous lenders have less ability to take advantage of consumers whilst under investigation. A potential option suggested is the creation of a warning system that notifies the public of any lenders under investigation and requires lenders to disclose this. By making potential consumers aware of the risks, this could reduce harm in this sector and further the purposes of the lender responsibility principles
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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