Directors’ Duties and Insolvency Recovery Claims (for Liquidators and Creditors)

You finished the work. You sent the claim. Then the payment date passes and nothing happens. For a small contractor, that gap can swallow wages, materials, tax, and sleep. The issue is not just cash, it is whether you are being treated fairly for work already delivered. What a construction payment claim is A construction payment claim is a way to recover money you are owed for building and civil works. It commonly arises when a principal, head contractor, or developer disputes a progress claim, holds back retention, or refuses to pay for variations or delays. These disputes often turn on documents, such as the contract, payment claims and schedules, site records, and quantity surveying evidence. That makes them well suited to a fast, structured approach. When people bring one People usually seek advice when payment is withheld without a clear explanation, when a payment schedule is late or inadequate, or when a project ends and the final account remains unpaid. A common pattern is a disagreement about whether work was within scope, whether variations were approved, or whether defects justify withholding payment. How the process can be made practical In many cases you can use a statutory adjudication process to obtain a quick decision about what must be paid, and when. Holland Beckett has experience representing construction companies in adjudication proceedings concerning payment claims, defective works, and variations. Some clients ask about a no win no fee or contingency fee option because funding a dispute while chasing payment feels backwards. Litigation funding can be available for suitable matters. It involves an external funder (separate from our firm) funding some or all legal costs in return for an agreed share of any recovery. Litigation funding is one tool, sitting alongside pro bono work and civil legal aid, that can help provide access to justice. Holland Beckett actively works in all three areas and we look for practical ways to keep a strong claim moving. Talk to us If you are owed money on a project, talk to us early. We can assess the documents, explain the quickest pathway, and discuss cost options, including whether litigation funding may be available.

Privacy concerns are ever mounting. And yet it is easy to assume that privacy breaches only happen to some other organisation or business. But the recent privacy incident involving Manage My Health challenges that assumption. Privacy breaches can happen to anyone. The real issue is not whether a privacy breach will happen to you. It is whether your systems are set up to prevent it. What happened Manage My Health is an online portal used by health providers and patients to store and access health information. A cyberattack compromised the platform in late 2025. The attackers used stolen login credentials to access a single patient account. The attack should have been contained to the single compromised account. It was not. Instead, weaknesses in access controls meant that one compromised account was used to access and extract information from thousands of other accounts. In total, just under 100,000 patients were affected. A large portion of the data came from hospital discharge records that had been stored in the system as part of a wider digital project. The Privacy Commissioner was notified and investigated the breach. The Commissioner identified a host of failures. Multi-factor authentication was not enforced. Monitoring systems did not detect unusual activity. Vulnerabilities had been identified before but not properly resolved. Governance and risk assessment processes were present but did not lead to effective action. Both the portal provider and the public health agency involved were found to have failed to meet the standard of “reasonable security safeguards”. The deeper point: privacy is treated as policy, not systems Most organisations approach privacy in two ways. They have a policy. It aligns with the Privacy Act. It sits on the website. They have an incident response plan. If something goes wrong, there is a process to follow. Both matter. Neither would have prevented this breach. The investigation points to a different issue. The systems themselves were not secure enough. Privacy controls existed, but they did not work effectively. Decisions about access and usability exposed data to risk. Known issues were identified but not properly resolved. The findings show that privacy controls must work in practice. Multi-factor authentication was optional, monitoring did not detect large-scale access, and data extraction went unchecked. Controls need to be enforced and tested against real scenarios so that a compromised account cannot move beyond its intended scope. They also show that the risks of others belong to you. There was heavy reliance on the provider’s own assurances about security, with limited independent checking or ongoing verification. Organisations need to test those assurances and maintain oversight throughout the life of the relationship, not just at the outset. Finally, the report shows that privacy must shape system design. Risk assessment came too late and did not properly inform how data was stored or matched to accounts. Privacy needs to be built into the design of systems so that sensitive information is only ever put into environments where it can be properly controlled. Talk to us The Manage My Health incident and Commisioner’s investigation highlights that privacy risk stems from systems, not just policies or breach response plans. Holland Beckett’s approach reflects that. Our privacy advice is more than policy writing and incident planning. We work with clients to understand how their systems operate, where risk sits within those systems, and what needs to change before issues arise. If you would like a privacy health check, want to identify where your risks sit, or need to build a clear response plan, get in touch with our team.

When someone close to you dies, you expect grief — but you do not expect to feel erased. If the will leaves you out, or treats you as an afterthought, it can land as a final dismissal: I wasn’t important enough to be recognised. Being left out of an estate can feel personal, even when people around you tell you to ‘let it go’. If you were a spouse, partner, or child and the will does not reflect the relationship you had (or the support you reasonably expected), it is normal to want more than the money. You want recognition that you mattered. A Family Protection Act claim is the main way New Zealand law responds to that problem. In plain terms, it allows the Court to step in where a will (or an intestacy outcome) leaves a close family member without proper provision, and to adjust the distribution of the estate to better reflect the responsibilities the deceased owed to their family. What is a Family Protection Act claim — and when do people bring one? People usually consider a claim when they have been left out entirely, left with a token amount, or when what they have received does not match the nature of the relationship or their circumstances. These claims are especially common where there are blended families, competing expectations, or uncertainty about whether children will ever receive meaningful provision. The Act can be used by a range of close family members. Commonly, that includes spouses/partners and children, and sometimes grandchildren, stepchildren (in limited circumstances), and parents. It is also worth knowing one practical point early: the Court’s ability to help depends on there being estate assets available to meet any adjusted provision. That is one reason early advice matters — it helps you understand what is in the estate, what options exist, and whether it is sensible to proceed. Making the claim practical: ‘no win no fee’ and litigation funding Cost is often what stops people taking the next step. In many cases, there are ways to structure costs so a claim can be pursued without having to fund the litigation month to month. One option is litigation funding. Litigation funding involves an external third‑party funder (not your law firm) paying some or all of the legal costs in return for an agreed share of any recovery. In the right case, it can remove the need to fund the litigation yourself as it progresses, and it can make the process feel closer to a ‘no win no fee’ arrangement in practical effect. Litigation funding is one tool, sitting alongside pro bono work and civil legal aid, that can help provide access to justice. Holland Beckett actively works in all three areas. Where litigation funding may help, our lawyers will look for options to facilitate it, including working with external litigation funders, so that people with genuine estate claims can pursue recognition and fair provision without the process becoming financially disruptive. Talk to us If you are considering a Family Protection Act claim — or even if you are simply asking yourself, ‘Was I treated fairly?’ — we can help you understand your position, your options, and whether litigation funding may be available for your case.