What your conflict of interest policy needs to say about senior staff
Your GM incorporated a company and said nothing. A New Zealand employment case decided on 12 March 2026 shows exactly why that matters.
Chris Yu was dismissed as General Manager of Home Synergy Limited on 3 February 2026. The core issue was not the side business itself. It was the silence around it.
Home Synergy is a small, family-owned business in East and South Auckland, selling, installing, and servicing HRV ventilation systems, heat pumps, and water purification products. Yu joined in January 2025 as Sales Manager and was promoted to General Manager on 1 September 2025, reporting to Michael Chong, the company's sole director, and a shareholder.
In late December 2025, Chong discovered on a search of the Companies Register that Yu had incorporated Yunico Limited on 23 October 2025, while already serving as General Manager. Yunico was a manufacturing company producing aromatic products for the cosmetic sector. Yu was its sole director, holding 84 percent of the shares, with the remaining 16 percent owned by a business partner.
On further investigation, Chong found that the business partner was the director and main shareholder of an electrical services company in Auckland. Chong was concerned Home Synergy's proprietary information could be inadvertently accessed through that connection. As General Manager, Yu had full access to revenue results, costing, daily and weekly performance data, customer lists,...
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