New Zealand Legislation: Acts

11 Meaning of material influence

• (1) Without limiting the ordinary meaning of the expression material influence, the following people are deemed to have material influence over an electricity business:

  • (a) a director or manager of a person that carries on the business:

  • (b) If the business is carried on by a natural person, that person:

  • (c) A person in accordance with whose directions, instructions, or wishes a person referred to in either of paragraph (a) or paragraph (b), or the business, may be required or is accustomed to act in respect of the carrying on or management of the business:

  • (d) A person that exercises or that is entitled to exercise, or who controls or is entitled to control the exercise of, powers which would ordinarily fall to be exercised by a person referred to in either of paragraph (a) or paragraph (b):

  • (e) A person that can appoint or remove, or control the appointment or removal of, a person referred to in either of paragraph (a) or paragraph (b):

  • (f) A person that has a power to influence a decision of the business which would ordinarily require the holding of control rights which would cause the person to exceed the 10% threshold:

  • (g) A person in circumstances where that person and the business is acting, or proposing to act, jointly or in concert in relation to the business; or

  • (h) A person that, under a trust or agreement (whether or not the person is a party to it), may at any time have any of the powers referred to in paragraph (c) to paragraph (f).

  (2) Where a person has material influence over an electricity business under this section, and another person has any of the powers or controls referred to in paragraph (c) to paragraph (h) in relation to the first person or the majority of its directors or managers, then that other person is deemed also to have material influence over the business, and so on.

  (3) A person is deemed to have material influence over an electricity business if the person is one of 2 or more associates who, together, have material influence over the business.

  (4) Subsection (3) does not apply to deem a person to have material influence over a business only because that person is, under section 12(1)(b) or (c), an associate of another person, provided those associates act in accordance with the arm’s-length rules (with all necessary modifications) in respect of the business.

  (5) For the avoidance of doubt, a power to cast one of many votes at an election of trustees or councillors does not, of itself, constitute material influence.

  Section 11(1)(a): amended, on 14 October 2008, by section 8(1) of the Electricity Industry Reform Amendment Act 2008 (2008 No 71).

  Section 11(2): amended, on 14 October 2008, by section 8(2) of the Electricity Industry Reform Amendment Act 2008 (2008 No 71).

  Section 11(4): amended, on 14 October 2008, by section 5(3) of the Electricity Industry Reform Amendment Act 2008 (2008 No 71).