The Serious Fraud Office says the guilty plea yesterday by an Auckland Council manager to corruption charges shows the dangers in not questioning a culture of gratuities. Barrie Kenneth James George, 69, this morning at the High Court at Auckland pleaded guilty to two charges of accepting bribes as a public official when he took gifts worth $103,580 between 2005 and 2012. The gifts included cash, and lavish overseas holidays for George and his family. SFO Director, Julie Read welcomed the guilty plea...

July 21 (Wellington) - Justice Kit Toogood sits on the bench today to hear Affco New Zealand's appeal against an Employment Court ruling that the rights of seasonal workers were preserved in the off-season, a decision that overturned a precedent-setting case from 1992 that he played a part in. Toogood, who was admitted to the bar in 1973 and appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1999 before being appointed a High Court judge in 2011, represented the meat industry in NZ Meat Workers Union v Richmond in 199...