Browsing by Author "Stace, Victoria"
Now showing 1 - 12 of 12
- Results Per Page
- Sort Options
Item Open Access Getting a Fair Deal? The Commerce Commission’s Enforcement of Lender Responsibility Principles(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2023) Windhager, Grace; Stace, VictoriaThe lender responsibility principles were introduced into the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act in 2015 and were intended to protect consumers from the conduct of unscrupulous lenders when entering into credit contracts. Under the CCCFA, the principles are enforced by the Commerce Commission. However, financial mentors have raised three main concerns regarding the Commission’s enforcement process. They are a lack of clarity around the law, the timeliness of investigations and enforcement actions and a lack of transparency in the process. This paper analyses the validity of these concerns and argues that the main issue in this process is the length of the investigations. On average, these investigations take 654 days and, during this time, lenders can continue to breach the principles as there are no interim protections for consumers. Reducing the time required for investigations is an important way to reduce harm within this sector. However, there are practical limitations on the ability of the Commerce Commission to investigate quickly. Therefore, this paper argues that complementary interim protections should be considered so that unscrupulous lenders have less ability to take advantage of consumers whilst under investigation. A potential option suggested is the creation of a warning system that notifies the public of any lenders under investigation and requires lenders to disclose this. By making potential consumers aware of the risks, this could reduce harm in this sector and further the purposes of the lender responsibility principles.Item Restricted LAWS360: Law: Company and Partnership Law(Victoria University of Wellington, 2014) Stace, VictoriaItem Restricted LAWS360: Law: Company and Partnership Law(Victoria University of Wellington, 2016) Stace, VictoriaItem Restricted LAWS360: Law: Company and Partnership Law(Victoria University of Wellington, 2015) Stace, VictoriaItem Restricted LAWS360: Law: Company and Partnership Law(Victoria University of Wellington, 2017) Stace, VictoriaItem Restricted LAWS362: Law: Insolvency Law(2019) Stace, VictoriaItem Restricted LAWS362: Law: Insolvency Law(Victoria University of Wellington, 2016) Stace, VictoriaItem Restricted LAWS362: Law: Insolvency Law(Victoria University of Wellington, 2017) Stace, VictoriaItem Restricted LAWS363: Law: Financial Markets Law(Victoria University of Wellington, 2016) Stace, VictoriaItem Restricted LAWS363: Law: Financial Markets Law(2018) Stace, VictoriaItem Open Access Navigating Towards an Airworthy Protection Regime for New Zealand's Airline Passengers(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2023) Macey, James; Stace, VictoriaDelays and cancellations are a frequent occurrence in air travel, but passenger protections in New Zealand lag behind those in other jurisdictions such as the European Union and Canada. Concerns around airlines’ treatment of passengers were brought to the fore during the Covid-19 pandemic, but protections were not strengthened in the recent repeal of the Civil Aviation Act 1990 and enactment of the Civil Aviation Act 2023. The new Act provides insufficient protection to passengers, and New Zealand’s other consumer law is also inadequate and difficult to apply to an airline context. Neither set of law has a dispute resolution scheme that is fit for purpose. Public enforcement of relevant laws by regulators is limited to breaches of the Fair Trading Act 1986, largely for misleading or deceptive trading practices, and not specific obligations to passengers. This paper examines the deficiencies in New Zealand’s airline passenger protection law and compares that law with the corresponding law in Australia, the European Union and Canada. It advocates for the making of regulations which provide for fixed amounts of compensation when a flight is delayed for controllable reasons, rather than laws which require a passenger to prove damages. That is consistent with the European and Canadian approaches. It also advocates for refunds to be made available to passengers where flights are cancelled or significantly delayed. To ensure that the new regulations are effective, this paper also advocates for an adjudicative dispute resolution scheme, funded by airlines according to their market share and the number of complaints received, with capacity for public enforcement (monetary fines) by the Commerce Commission.Item Open Access A Need for Change? New Zealand’s Financial Dispute Resolution Schemes(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2023) Shadbolt, Jaime; Stace, VictoriaFinancial dispute resolution is an integral part of any financial system; it ensures that consumers have access to fair redress, for example if their financial provider has failed to adequately support them or subjected them to irresponsible lending practices. NZ financial dispute resolution service has continued to evolve since its establishment to accommodate changes in the financial market. This has resulted in the existence today of four different external dispute resolution schemes. The operation of four schemes has caused debate on whether or not the framework is operating to the highest standard of efficiency to enable consumers to access fair and equitable redress when lodging a complaint against a financial provider. Financial mentors across New Zealand are strongly appealing for a legislative restructuring to disengage the current four schemes; urging to replace them with a single dispute resolution body. This paper will analyse the current framework New Zealand has in place and analyse the different perspectives on whether legislative change is required. Part II will consider how our current system came to exist before moving on to consider the main issues that are found within the multi-scheme framework in Part III. Part IV analyses the benefits of moving to a single dispute resolution framework in the context of Australia and their recent move to the single-scheme Australian financial complaints authority. Part V will raise opposing arguments on the effectiveness of the current framework. Having analysed the different arguments on the performance of the current framework Part VI will propose an alternative solution that seeks to encompass both perspectives.