Fired by email, compensated for culture
When the Pacific Island Business Development Trust restructured in June 2023, it terminated two senior employees by email. John Faitala, general manager for programme services and clients, and Vahanoa Vea, corporate services manager, had both been hired partly for their cultural capability and understanding of Pasifika values. Those same values, respect, family (aiga), community, reciprocity, and religion and spirituality, were expressly written into their position descriptions and employment agreements.
Employment Court Judge M S King found the trust breached those obligations. Faitala was awarded $30,000 compensation for hurt and humiliation plus six months’ lost wages. Vea received $45,000 compensation plus twelve months’ lost wages. The employees described the email termination as a “slap in the face”, saying the Pasifika way would have involved face-to-face meetings. The court agreed.
Employment law advocate Galuvao Paul Pa’u, who acted for Faitala and Vea, said the ruling’s most significant aspect was that “Pasifika values could now be part of employment terms and conditions. And if breached, it could give grounds for a personal grievance.”
This is the second time, not the first
The Pasifika ruling did not emerge from nowhere. In 2023, the Employment Court found that New Zealand Customs had failed to engage with a vaccine-mandate dismissal in a manner consistent with tikanga Maori values it had incorporated into its own organisational framework. Then-Chief Judge Inglis found that “it cannot be right that, after having incorporated a commitment to certain values into the employment relationship with staff, Customs can then say they are only relevant to some staff.”
She also held that “it is not up to employees to have to request that the employer act in accordance with its own values” and that employers should be expected to live by them regardless. The court recommended Customs engage tikanga experts and undertake training.
Dyhrberg Drayton Employment Law warned in July 2023 that “employers cannot blindly include such values into their policies and procedures without first understanding what those values mean and how the inclusion could create obligations under employment law.” That warning has now been validated twice.
The process failures matter as much as the values
It is worth being precise about what the court actually punished. The trust sent termination notices by email without face-to-face process, failed to genuinely explore redeployment, and ran a consultation process that left key questions unanswered. These are failures any employer could make in a restructuring. The cultural values framework amplified the damages, but the underlying conduct failures are recognisable to any employment lawyer.
A separate Auckland nutraceutical case in April 2026, where an employer was ordered to pay $15,000 compensation plus a $4,000 penalty after a procedurally flawed constructive dismissal, illustrates that sloppy process remains the engine of most employment liability. Cultural obligations now add a further layer of exposure on top.
Who is actually exposed
The risk is not confined to Pasifika or Maori-focused organisations. Any employer that has written cultural, tikanga, diversity or values language into job descriptions, employment agreements, position descriptions or workplace policies may face liability they have never stress-tested. That includes large corporates, government agencies, iwi entities, community organisations, and the growing number of private-sector firms that adopted diversity commitments over the past decade.
The mechanism is straightforward. If you write values into employment documents, those values become contractual obligations. Breach them during restructuring, dismissal or disciplinary processes, and you face personal grievance claims. The compensation exposure includes both hurt and humiliation awards and extended lost-wage calculations where the court finds fair process would have led to redeployment.
As the 2023 Customs case established, the court in that case observed that tikanga values “sit entirely comfortably with an area of law which is relationship-centric, based on mutual obligations of good faith”. The direction of travel is clear. Employment law is not retreating from this territory.
Audit now or litigate later
Two rulings in three years have established the same principle. Cultural and organisational values written into employment documents are enforceable contracts. Many employers adopted this language for good reasons, to attract talent, satisfy funders, signal commitment. But aspiration and obligation are different things, and the Employment Court has made clear it does not care which one you intended.
The question for every business owner who has signed off on a values statement, a diversity charter, or a tikanga framework embedded in HR documents is simple: can you actually deliver what you promised? If the answer is “we haven’t checked,” the $75,000 awarded in this case is your preview of the cost.
Sources
- HCAMag: Cultural values in employment agreements are now legally enforceable, court rules (2026-04-18)
- NZ Herald: Two workers awarded $75,000 compensation after court finds employer breached Pasifika values
- Dundas Street: Employment Court holds employer to tikanga values (2023-08-28)
- Dundas Street: Employment Court holds employer to tikanga values (2023-08-28)
- Dyhrberg Drayton Employment Law: Tikanga and employment relationships (2023-07-07)
- HCAMag: Auckland employer ordered to pay former worker after defying ERA rulings (2026-04-14)