Employers now have more power when it comes to knowing about and taking action on criminal acts of their employees, following a precedent-setting ruling from the Supreme Court. The precedent-setting case involved a dispute between a security guard and his employer, the University of Otago. While employed at the university, the security guard pleaded guilty to wilful damage and assaulting his wife, from whom he is now separated, the judgment says.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/employers-entitled-get-around-suppression-orders-supreme-court-rules-cg-p-202598

A report commissioned by High-Value Nutrition, one of the government’s 11 national science challenges, shows New Zealand has only one scientifically validated functional food export. High-Value Nutrition (HVN) has $84 million in funding over 10 years to help establish New Zealand as an international leader in food for health and to increase exports in this area by $1 billion by 2025.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/new-zealand-lacks-food-exports-proven-health-benefits-report-shows-fr-p-202546

Next week’s Australian budget is going big on infrastructure spending and cutting subsidies for tertiary students. It is being released amid signs the economy is recovering but nobody, least of all the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), is getting carried away. Its decision on Tuesday to hold the official cash rate at 1.5% for at least another month is based on the economy still lacking strength. The OCR has been at this historic low since last August and financial markets are not predicting a change until September 2018.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/editors-insight-australias-job-market-wont-be-pulling-kiwis-any-time-soon

A2 Milk wants to raise its share of China’s infant formula market to 5% and then in the long term to about 10%. That was a key takeaway by attendees at the company’s presentation to Macquarie’s annual conference in Australia. The company has previously been cautious about publicly announcing targets, so such openness about its ambitions is a sign of its increasing confidence.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/a2-milk-targets-10-chinas-infant-formula-market-jr-p-202557

A UK supermarket chain has become the latest British entity to take issue with the sale of New Zealand lamb. But one expert says the rejection of New Zealand lamb by British shops won’t be adopted by the UK’s bigger supermarket players. This week, British supermarket chain Co-op adopted a “buy British” stance, pledging to sell only British meat in its stores.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/expert-has-no-beef-poms-rejecting-nz-lamb-jw-p-202548

The angel backers of a Hawke’s Bay apple company say the uplift in value of its investment indicates angel investing can be lucrative in New Zealand. Enterprise Angels, the Waikato and Bay of Plenty angel group, saw a 10 times lift in its investment in Rockit Global after private equity investors Pioneer Capital and Oriens Capital took a 56% stake in March. The private equity investors have not revealed how much they paid for the stake they bought from founder Phil Alison but it is thought to be in the tens of millions of dollars.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/rockit-apples-value-uplift-gives-angel-backers-hope-cs-p-202558

Unemployment has confounded forecasts again, falling below 5% of the workforce.

The jobless rate is making something of a habit of doing this: In the final quarter of 2016 it jumped from 5% to 5.2% of the workforce, and most economists expected it to stay above 5% for the first three months of this year.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/jobless-numbers-unexpectedly-drop-economic-growth-surges

Horton Media owner Matthew Horton says he’d be keen to make an offer for any of Fairfax New Zealand’s assets in the wake of the Commerce Commission rejecting a proposed merger between Fairfax and NZME today.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/who-might-buy-fairfax-nzs-assets-fr-p-202523

The global business scene has been dominated so far this year by robust stock and bond markets – but one thing has been missing. After a blistering start, in which three deals worth a total of $US18 billion occurred on a single day on January 9, mergers and acquisitions this year have slid to their lowest level globally in nearly 20 years. Those deals, all in the US, were typical of consolidation that is occurring in some industries: petfood, pharmaceuticals and healthcare.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/editors-insight-dealmakers-suddenly-find-takeovers-are-harder-dearer

Tesla says it will make its fast-charge stations more readily available in all markets it sells its electric vehicles in, which now includes New Zealand. The move to expand the Tesla Supercharger network globally is timed to coincide with the launch of the Model 3; the technology company’s first mass-market vehicle. With more vehicles on the road, the move to expand its network for wider usage is a necessary one, it says.

Read more ($): https://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/car-torque-tesla-plans-expanded-supercharger-infrastructure