Hugh Hutchison, senior commercial adviser at Sport NZ Photo / Supplied
Hugh Hutchison, senior commercial adviser at Sport NZ Photo / Supplied
A senior official at Sport NZ is under investigation for possible conflicts of interest after a sport-focused mobile-app maker said he negotiated a deal to offer advice in return for being made a shareholder.
Sport NZ chief executive Peter Miskimmin told the Herald the relationship between Hugh Hutchison, a senior commercial adviser at the taxpayer-funded agency, and app-maker The Sports Agency (TSA) had not been disclosed at the time by his employee.
Miskimmin said the issues raised were "significant" and he was taking advice on Hutchison's employment.
"I need to prove the validity or otherwise of these claims," he said.
"Obviously there's a natural justice concern for that employee.
"So I've got an investigation going on - or about to start - and I'll conduct that as swiftly as I can."
Hutchison told the Herald he did not believe he did anything wrong; shares had been issued in his name by mistake and the arrangement had not progressed beyond discussion and it posed no real or actual conflict.
He said he would have raised the matter with his employer "if it was going to go ahead", and there was nothing to the allegations: "Nothing was taken forward with it, no money changed hands, so it's an allegation over nothing."
Sport NZ is the Government's lead sport funding agency and in the 2016 financial year received $130 million from public sources.
A former member of the British military who represented the country in freestyle skiing at the Olympics, Hutchison has been employed at Sport NZ working on sponsorship and marketing issues since 2010.
TSA is a startup focused on "providing digital solutions for sporting organisations" directed and owned by chartered accountant Chris King and football coach Chris Milicich.
According to Companies Office filings Hutchison was made a 15 per cent shareholder on February 14.
Chartered accountant Chris King. Photo / Supplied
King, a chartered accountant who processed the documents, described this move as a "mistake".
"Unfortunately I pushed the button a bit fast on a conversation we were having," King explained.
Asked about the arrangement with Hutchison that underlay the share issue, King initially declined to provide details. "That's commercially confidential," he said.
His co-director Milicich, a prominent figure in football and former coach of the New Zealand under-20 team, was more forthcoming. He said Hutchison was to be made a shareholder in return for offering "advisory" services.
"There was no money or anything like that. It was more his vast array of knowledge. But it was actually nothing to do with his current role," Milicich said.
Football coach Chris Milicich. Photo / Photosport
King said in a later email that TSA had raised the possibly of a conflict of interest early and relied on Hutchison to disclose and clear matters with Sport NZ.
Miskimmin said he had first been notified of Hutchison's dealings with TSA on February 21 when a member of the public alerted him to the Companies Office filings.
He said he met Hutchison soon after and was assured the deal was financial only and as no money had changed hands it had not proceeded.
Milicich said Hutchison had told them the deal was off. "We were told we weren't allowed to do it. Conflict of interest from Peter Miskimmin, and that's fine," he said.
On February 23 the shareholding changes were reversed.
Hutchison said the deal wouldn't have involved the provision of any advice. "This was an equity purchase. Fifteen per cent for an amount. That was a cash purchase," he said.
King disputed this characterisation of the arrangement: "The role discussed was advisory and no capital injection was discussed as part of any potential deal."
Miskimmin said that while he was satisfied with his earlier handling of the episode, Herald investigations had prompted him to reopen the matter in order to get to the bottom of conflicting accounts.
MP Trevor Mallard, the Labour Party spokesman for sport and recreation, said the episode was worrying and he would raise the matter with Sport NZ during their next appearance at select committee.
"It does not give the appearance of being tidy," he said. "If the answers that I get aren't satisfactory, then it could be appropriate for the State Services Commission to have a look at it."
A spokeswoman for Sport and Recreation Minister Jonathan Coleman said it was an employment matter for Sport NZ to manage.
