Don't run your business like a criminal enterprise

The Detail this morning highlights the police's asset forfeiture case against convicted business criminal Ron Salter, who stands to have his business confiscated for systemic violations of health and safety law. Business are crying foul - but not for the reason you'd think. Instead of opposing the post-conviction punishment and double-jeopardy aspects of this case, instead they're whining that the law just shouldn't apply to them:

Today on The Detail David Fisher talks through the potential consequences of this action.

"Were the case against the Salters to be proved, then it would leave, I would think, many different businesses feeling extremely vulnerable. Because they could very much be the next one under the gun," he says.

[...]

"So this is really fascinating because it would be really easy to find, if you were inclined to, $30,000 or more worth of offending to do with the Fair Trading Act, or the Resource Management Act. Dairy farms exceed $30,000 of business on any given day, really, and they deal with the Resource Management Act all the time. So were the case against the Salters to be proved then it would leave, I would think, many different businesses feeling extremely vulnerable, because they could very much be the next one under the gun."

And so they should. Because these things are actually crimes, and knowingly profiting from them clearly meets the definition of "unlawfully benefited from significant criminal activity" in the Act. Businesses worried about the law applying to them have a simple solution: don't run your business as a criminal enterprise. Don't systematically violate employment, environmental, health and safety, consumer rights, or immigration law, and don't rely on those violations for your "profit".

And that said: the proper place for asset forfeiture is at conviction. While Salter was convicted of negligently killing an employee, that was in 2017. Any asset forfeiture should have been done then. It is not right for someone to be convicted and serve their sentence, and then for the state to come back and try to punish them again. And that is what is happening in this case. Unfortunately, that is exactly how this law is intended to operate. Its a clear violation of the right not to be punished for the same offence. But it will likely continue until there is a declaration of inconsistency and the law is changed.