Reputation hostage to weak company law – Dominion Post

Quote from Editorial 20 January 2010, p. B4

“… But something is awry when one office in the Salvation Army’s Auckland building can be home to 2496 companies. And something else is wrong when New Zealand can be dragged into an international arms smuggling incident because one of those companies – SP Trading [Ltd] – was used to lease a plane detained at Bangkok Airport in December [2009]with 35 tons of missles and explosives on board…. The purpose of company law is to facilitate business. It is not to facilitate tax avoidance here or overseas or gun running or money laundering by shadowy figures overseas to give their dubious activities a patina of respectability by attaching a New Zealand PO box number to them…. [Critics of the Companies Office registration system, including the Society, consider that] more vigorous enforcement of existing law [is needed], the Government should get on with it. New Zealand’s reputation is at stake.”