The Commerce Commission has filed a total of eight representative charges against building product company Global Fibre8 Limited and its sole director and shareholder Tangi Tuake.
The charges are all under the Fair Trading Act 1986 and relate to various representations made between July 2015 and August 2018 about K3T, a wall panel system.
The Commission alleges that the defendants represented that a CodeMark certificate issued for K3T in July 2015 certified the compliance of K3T with the New Zealand Building Code, when it did not. The CodeMark Certificate only certified the compliance of K3T with the Building Code of Australia.
The Commission alleges that at no time did Global Fibre8 have New Zealand CodeMark certification.
It is alleged that Global Fibre8 and Mr Tuake made the CodeMark representations:
- on the Global Fibre8 website by stating the K3T product “has received certification under the CodeMark scheme” and that “means a guaranteed acceptance by the regulatory bodies”
- in a July 2015 letter to licensed sellers of the K3T product by stating “you won’t need to convince your clients with any technical reports”
- in a series of TVNZ news stories broadcast in May 2018 by stating “yes it does meet the New Zealand Building Code”
- orally to licensed sellers and installers of the K3T product.
The next scheduled appearance is 9am on 20 August in the Auckland District Court.
