If, for any reason that Link doesn't work, go to www.cafca.org.nz click on the Views, Analyses and Research page and follow the Roger Award links.

One of the very few safeguards in New Zealand's laughably weak repertoire of foreign investment laws is that the persons exercising control over a foreign company be of good character. Note - not the company itself, but the individuals controlling it. So, in March 2004, CAFCA wrote to the Overseas Investment Commission, sending them a hard copy of the Judges' Report, and saying:

"We believe that the material contained in this Report, plus the material from which the judges made their decision (including the voluminous and damning Occupational Health and Safety Service audit of Juken Nissho) indicates that 'the persons who exercise control over the applicants' are not of good character, in that they have allowed this disgraceful state of affairs to come about, particularly the repeated violations of New Zealand’s health and safety laws. In the process, Juken Nissho has acquired a most impressive criminal record, which is detailed in the Report". We specifically asked the Commission why it had approved two new applications from Juken Nissho, in January 2004, and, in light of the evidence we had presented, asked the Commission to revoke those two approvals.

In June we got our answer. "The Commission has considered the information you have provided to the extent it is relevant to the Overseas Investment Act and Regulations. Following its investigation into the issues raised, the Commission remains satisfied that Juken Nissho Limited has previously and continues to fulfil the criteria as set out in section 12B(2)(a)-(c) of the Overseas Investment Act 1973 and in particular that the persons who exercise control over the company continue to be of good character".

How does the OIC determine "good character"? It accepts a lawyer’s letter saying that his/her client is of good character. That’s it. And the good character requirement applies only to individuals, not to the companies themselves. On several occasions in the past few years, CAFCA has laid complaints of lack of good character with the OIC, against both foreign individuals and companies. In the case of individuals (one of whom boasted, in an American newspaper, of funding a Third World terrorist movement branded by the US State Department as worse than Cambodia’s infamous Khmer Rouge), the OIC has sat on its hands – for more than a year in that case – then pronounced itself satisfied. We have supplied detailed evidence of the crimes, criminal and civil, by the former American parent of Waste Management. We also drew to the OIC’s attention the dreadful record of Archer Daniels Midland in the US (a whole book has been written about one particular ADM crime). All has been declared above board by the OIC. And it’s not only us. Several years ago we secured the complete (well, with numerous deletions) file about the 1999/02 Labour/Alliance government’s initial refusal to allow Brierley’s to sell its stake in Sealord to foreign fishing TNCs. In the case of several unidentified fishing TNCs, the Ministry of Fisheries had recommended to its Minister that the company was not of good character and itemised its international criminal record. In every case, the OIC urged the Minister that it was satisfied as to the applicant’s good character and urged him to override his Ministry’s advice.