Terms and conditions of engagement
By contacting and using Sacked Kiwi’s services, you accept and agree to be bound by these terms and conditions of engagement. In addition, when using our services, you shall be subject to any posted guidelines or rules applicable to such services.
We reserve the right to change any part of the agreement at any time. You will be notified in writing (via email) immediately.
We also reserve the right to close an account without cause. Terms remain valid after termination.
Sacked Kiwi is a trading name for SK & Co Employment Law Ltd.
Privacy
We may use your personal information within Sacked Kiwi to provide you with the services and to process or collect payment for our services.
We will not disclose any personal information to any third party (excluding our contractors to whom we may provide such information for the limited purpose of providing services to us and who are obligated to keep the information confidential), unless you have authorised us to do so. We may be legally required to disclose information, for example, in response to a court order or other legal process. We also may share aggregate, non-personal information about you with unaffiliated third parties. This aggregate information does not contain any personal information about our clients.
As a matter of course your information may be provided to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and/or the Employment Relations Authority and other Government agencies as a result of this grievance. You agree that this may be done without notice to you.
We exercise great care to protect your personal information at all times. This includes, among other things, using industry standard techniques. We cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or receive from us. This is especially true for information you transmit to us via email since we have no way of protecting that information until it reaches us.
Only those employees and contractors with a business reason to know have access to any information. We educate our employees about the importance of maintaining confidentiality of customer information.
We review our privacy arrangements from time to time as we deem appropriate.
Fees
During any settlement or resolution negotiation, Sacked Kiwi always attempts to negotiate a monetary compensation for you and over 95% of our clients do receive this.
We consider the amount that you will receive net of our fees. We strive to ensure that our fees will never interfere with settlement and will negotiate with you so you are at all times aware of what our costs will be and ensure you receive a fair and just outcome.
We bill our time dependent on the individual attending to your file – our hourly rates fluctuate from $150.00 to $350.00 plus GST per hour. As a guide, total fees may range from $1,000.00 to $4,000.00 plus GST. Naturally, disbursements shall be added to any time charged.
At Sacked Kiwi’s sole discretion, we may negotiate on our fees to enable settlement or as deemed appropriate. We strive to never have our fees create a barrier to resolution and so may reduce accordingly.
We usually work on a contingency (i.e. no win, no fee) basis for personal grievance related work, which means we only charge if we are successful or if you withdraw. That means we are most engaged upon your success and are as equally motivated to succeed.
Should you decide to withdraw your claim after you have instructed us to act for you, you will be liable for any professional costs incurred by the individual(s) working on your file, including disbursements.
We attempt to ensure the employer pays our fees directly and 95% of the time this occurs. We will let you know if there is an issue or if this will not be the case for you.
Employment Relations Authority (ERA) Hearings:
The above largely applies at the ERA. Our bill only becomes payable when we are successful or if you withdraw.
Hearings take a lot more work so our costs will go up drastically, on average between $8,000.00 – $10,000.00.
The ERA work on a daily tariff rate of $4,500.00 for the first day and $3,500.00 for each day after that, which is awarded to the winning party. This is on top of an applicant’s claim for any compensation, wages, or penalties.
The costs awarded might not always cover our fees in full so in that circumstance, a client will have to top up our fees. For example, if a client won $20,000.00 and $4,500.00 towards costs, and our fees were $8,000.00, there would be a balance of $3,500.00 due from the $20,000.00. We will be transparent around these costs at all times. Your advocate will talk to you more about this if and when it becomes necessary.
In addition, you may incur costs if your case is taken to the ERA and subsequently lost. Again, this will be explained to you if relevant to your case and detail around the complexities of this issue will be outlined.
Investigations and Disciplinary Meetings:
Representation at a disciplinary meeting, investigation, or the preparation of a letter that is not associated to a grievance claim will be charged at an hourly or fixed fee rate. This will be explained to you if relevant to your case.
Any payment required for professional services provided by Sacked Kiwi is required to be paid in full within seven days of the completion or services and/or the receipt of an invoice. We may charge interest on unpaid accounts at the rate of 4% per annum above ANZ base lending rate calculated on a daily basis and charged monthly. We may take action to recover unpaid accounts and charge you the cost of that recovery.
Advocacy
We are Employment Law Advocates. Whilst some of our advocates are legally trained and have law degrees, none are currently registered with the Law Society and accordingly are not practicing lawyers. If you need any clarity on what this means and the reasoning, please ask your advocate or contact alex@sackedkiwi.co.nz.
Conflicts of Interest
When we do work for you, we will always protect and promote your interests.
Before we accept a job from you, we will do our best to find out if any conflict of interest exists.
If we find a conflict at any time, we will immediately let you know and tell you how we plan to deal with the conflict. That may mean we stop working for you, the other client or both.
Emails
We will communicate with you by email about the work we do for you.
We have virus protection software and security protocols in place however we cannot guarantee that electronic communications will always be free from viruses or other defects, are secure, or will be received.
We may occasionally email you information we feel is relevant and useful to you. In providing us with your email address, we will assume that you have consented for us to do so. If you do not want to receive any information, let us know.
How you can help us
You can help us by:
- giving us clear and complete instructions and information;
- asking if there is anything you are not sure of;
- telling us if you have any urgent pressures or important time limits;
- dealing promptly with any questions we have;
- telling us if your contact details change; and
- keeping in touch.
At any time if you have a question, please ask. Let us know if you’re unsure about anything – there are no silly questions. We do this every day so sometimes it won’t occur to us that an aspect of our work is unfamiliar to you. We are here to create solutions and want you to feel as comfortable and as in control as you would like to be.
Liability
We shall not be liable for any loss or liability caused or contributed to by inaccurate or incomplete information supplied by you or third parties (including public records and expert witnesses) or because you did not receive or read communication that we sent you. We will at all times do our best for you but will not be liable for any loss or cost incurred by you in this process.
Ending our engagement
We retain all of our work until any fees are paid in full. We may keep a copy of any records you take, which will only be released upon full settlement of fees.
How we handle complaints
We are committed to providing services of the highest professional standards.
We will deal with any complaints promptly and fairly.
If you have any concerns please immediately contact your advocate or Alex Kersjes, founder alex@sackedkiwi.co.nz.
We believe in communication being the foundation of any relationship. We value our relationships with our clients. If you have any questions about these terms and conditions, please ask.
Thank you for instructing us to handle your employment issue.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about our Terms & Conditions, please contact us: