KEY POINTS:
It emerged from the prosecution of the Bridgecorp directors that their staff were allegedly told to lie to investors who complained about late interest payments, telling them a bank error or a computer glitch was to blame. One member of the finance company's investor services team was said to have been moved sideways after she refused to mislead people.
The details are in the summary of the Registrar of Companies' case against the two former directors.
The summary says that despite defaulting on numerous payments due to investors between February and June 2007, the company continued to take in $92.5 million of investors' money.
Apparently two directors met Bridgecorp employees in March to discuss the problem of late payments. At this meeting, it was decided the investor services team would falsely tell investors who rang that there had been a bank error or a computer glitch.
This sort of request is not uncommon in other businesses. Employers ask their employees to lie for a range of reasons - from a desire to stave off insolvency (as in the Bridgecorp case), to a simple "white lie" to save nothing more than a few blushes - for instance where a manager hasn't done something they should have, and when the client rings up to chase, the manager asks an employee to say they are in a meeting.
The latter happens pretty frequently in most businesses. Where things get moreserious, however, the employee can be put in a difficult position. In some cases they themselves could even be accused of aiding and abetting a criminal offence, and yet they may face pressure from management and colleagues, whose jobs may be at risk if they don't toe the party line.
The law does protect employees who disclose apparent criminal offending from dismissal or other retaliation, provided the disclosure is made in accordance with the Protected Disclosures Act.
This includes external disclosures, in certain circumstances. That doesn't necessarily make an employee's decision any easier, however.
So - would you lie to save your job? Or would you blow the whistle?
Greg Cain
Greg Cain is an employment lawyer at Minter Ellison Rudd Watts.