Liquidation won’t save directors who sell jobs to migrant workers

The company is gone. The bill is not. Huy Quang Tran, sole director of liquidated Auckland labour-hire firm High-End Renov Group Ltd (HERG), has been ordered by the Employment Relations Authority to pay $203,469.89 over breaches affecting three Vietnamese migrant workers.

The message for anyone running a visa-dependent workforce is simple. Migrant-worker compliance is now a personal liability, and putting the company into liquidation does not make it go away.

A loan that was really a job price

HERG supplied painters and plasterers to construction sites in Auckland and Christchurch. Two of the three workers each paid $30,000 offshore to secure jobs under the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) scheme. Tran argued the money was a personal loan. The ERA rejected that and ruled it an illegal fee to buy a job.

The award breaks down into $132,291 in wage arrears, holiday pay and unlawful premiums owed directly to the workers, plus $71,178 in penalties, $6,000 of which goes to each worker.

ERA member Robert Davies said the premiums were “especially serious because the sums were substantial and the payments were connected to the prospect of employment in New Zealand”. He was satisfied Tran “was actively involved in HERG’s breaches and had knowledge of the essential facts constituting them.” That finding matters. Without it, the workers would be queuing behind every other creditor of a dead company and would probably recover nothing.

Five directors, one playbook

Tran is not an outlier. He is the fifth director this year to be held personally on the hook in a significant premium case.

• In August, Bay of Plenty firm Indo Kiwi Horticulture and former director Boota Singh Dhillon were ordered to pay more than $416,000 combined after four Indian workers were underpaid and charged $65,437 in unlawful premiums. ERA member Jeremy Lynch said the breaches indicated “a disregard for minimum employment standards.”
• Also in August, Te Puke’s NZ Dream Contracting was ordered to repay $104,000 after charging two workers $52,000 each, part of it collected in cash in India and Manukau. Director Gurpreet Singh was named “the driving force behind the premiums” and made liable for any company shortfall.
• In July, a Thames Four Square operator and its sole director were penalised $44,000 after charging two workers $120,000 in premiums across seven instalments paid in India.
• In June, an Auckland City Lawns franchisee was penalised $24,000 for charging one worker almost $45,000 for his job, with the director personally liable if the company cannot pay.

The profile repeats. These are small to mid-sized operators in construction, horticulture and retail that rely heavily on AEWV labour. The money changes hands offshore, and the employer later describes it as something other than a job fee. Every one of those defences has now failed.

The offshore excuse is dead

The AEWV’s design gives the sponsoring employer leverage, because the worker’s visa depends on the job offer. Regulators saw the problem growing. MBIE’s 2024 Regulatory Impact Statement recorded premium complaints rising from 105 in 2021/22 to 376 in 2023/24. It also flagged that existing Immigration Act offences did not clearly capture payments made overseas before employment started.

The courts have since closed much of that gap. An Employment Court ruling confirmed that overseas payments for New Zealand jobs are illegal no matter who made them. Lower-level enforcement is also picking up. In 2025, Immigration New Zealand reported that its infringement scheme had issued 314 notices and more than $1 million in penalties in its first two years.

Labour Inspectorate acting head Jeanie Borsboom says the personal liability is deliberate. Directors “could be held personally accountable”, and enforcement will continue where employers “seek to profit at the expense of vulnerable workers.”

Honest employers should welcome this

This is not regulatory overreach. Charging a worker for a job and then underpaying them lets an operator undercut competitors who follow the rules. It also damages a visa scheme that construction and horticulture depend on to fill real labour shortages.

Industry has said as much. In 2025, Federated Farmers, Horticulture NZ, BusinessNZ and others backed tougher enforcement at select committee. Zespri told MPs that workers in its own supply chain had sold land to buy jobs. Both Zespri and BusinessNZ wanted sanctions extended to offshore recruiters. The Citizens Advice Bureau said premiums typically exceeded $15,000 and warned that New Zealand authorities have limited reach overseas.

That is the uncomfortable gap. The cases regulators win are the ones they can trace, and the agents who run many of these schemes sit beyond the ERA’s reach. Until the law can reach them, the directors who take the money will carry the full cost. Tran’s $203,000 order shows that the cost now follows the director personally, whether or not the company survives.

Sources

• NZ Herald: Employment Relations Authority orders Auckland company director Huy Quang Tran to pay $203k for migrant worker breaches (2026-11-04)
• The Press: Labour hire director ordered to pay $203,000 for charging migrant workers for jobs (2026-11-04)
• SunLive: Migrant workers underpaid, firm fined $416k (2026-08-21)
• Newsroom: Kiwifruit labour business ordered to repay $104k over cash-for-jobs scheme (2026-08-25)
• Awaaz: $52,000 per person – How a Tauranga labour hire company sold jobs for cash in India (2026-08-21)
• Employment NZ: Thames Four Square and owner penalised over $120,000 migrant worker premiums (2026-07-27)
• Employment NZ: Auckland company charged migrant worker almost $45,000 for his job (2026-06-03)
• MBIE: Regulatory Impact Statement – Strengthening migrant exploitation offences (2024-09-04)
• Immigration NZ: Important Employment Court decision – overseas payments for New Zealand jobs are illegal
• Immigration NZ: Background and statistics on the Immigration Employment Infringement Scheme (2025-08-26)
• Newsroom: Immigration bill should go harder on exploitation, industry and advocates say (2025-09-29)