{"id":185380,"date":"2025-12-15T21:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T21:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/185380\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T21:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T21:10:08","slug":"auckland-businessman-who-took-773k-in-anz-commissions-gets-home-detention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/185380\/","title":{"rendered":"Auckland businessman who took $773k in ANZ commissions gets home detention"},"content":{"rendered":"However, AIG commission records associated with the ANZ legacy products indicated commission payments were made payable to a bank account owned by Waller\u2019s business, Nutfields Management.<\/p>\n
These payments would then be transferred out of Waller\u2019s business bank account and into personal accounts, including his Airpoints Visa Platinum account, a car payment account and another for bill payments.<\/p>\n
Waller was entitled to these commissions while employed with ING, however after ending his employment in 2005, the payments should have ceased.<\/p>\n
He instead continued to receive commission payments from June 27, 2006 until January 31, 2022, totalling $773,448.67.<\/p>\n
Instead of alerting AIG Insurance or ANZ about the issue, Waller continued to transfer the funds to his own accounts for personal use.<\/p>\n
It was not until April 2022 that ANZ became aware of the closure of ANZ-named insurance products following a review and found the discrepancy.<\/p>\n
Crown lawyer Clare Antenen sought a starting point of four to four-and-a-half years\u2019 imprisonment and requested a reparation order to repay ANZ for the funds.<\/p>\n
Arguing on his behalf, defence lawyer Guyon Foley described Waller as an \u201cinnovative man, not a man who pays attention to detail\u201d, and that the payments \u201cwere a commission for a business idea\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a crime, and his life as you can imagine, has been turned upside down,\u201d Foley said.<\/p>\n
He said Waller had no previous convictions and worked his entire life as a \u201crespected businessman\u201d, noting he currently runs a business with eight employees.<\/p>\n
Waller was initially intending to go to trial to fight the charge, but came to the conclusion that the cost of the trial and the stress of a jury would not be worth it, instead submitting a guilty plea on August 29.<\/p>\n
Foley acknowledged Waller\u2019s actions were \u201creckless\u201d, but not that of a fraudster, noting that he was not responsible for setting up the payment system.<\/p>\n
He also stressed that the commission slips detailing the payments had the name of Waller\u2019s business, and would have been identifiable if investigated sooner.<\/p>\n
Foley said Waller had expressed his \u201csincere remorse and humility\u201d in a letter to the judge before sentencing.<\/p>\n
However, Justice Kirsten Lummis said she did not feel that remorse within the pre-sentence report, noting his reluctance to plead guilty in the first instance was perhaps a sign of this.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s uncertain to me as to why he wouldn\u2019t have known, with his experience,\u201d Judge Lummis said.<\/p>\n
Judge Lummis referred to impact statements from Waller\u2019s wife and daughter, who were in attendance along with two of his friends, although did not read them out in full.<\/p>\n
They described Waller as a \u201chard-working, good father who has love and care for his employees\u201d and someone \u201cknown for his kindness\u201d.<\/p>\n
Waller\u2019s family and friends were visibly upset during the sentencing, often sharing glances with Waller, who was in the stand.<\/p>\n
Foley raised the importance of Waller\u2019s current health status, noting he is a type-one diabetic. Waller also sustained a heart attack in 2018 and underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 2020, with his doctor describing his health as \u201cunstable\u201d.<\/p>\n
During the sentencing, Waller held prescription medication and a monitoring device on his person, with Foley explaining he brought the items with him in case he was sentenced to imprisonment.<\/p>\n
When considering whether reparations should be made to ANZ, Antenen sought a reparation order but couldn\u2019t suggest an amount to be repaid as she had not been given evidence of Waller\u2019s financial position.<\/p>\n
She agreed with Judge Lummis that it was not realistic for the full amount to be repaid and reiterated that a percentage after living expenses were paid would suffice.<\/p>\n
However, Foley contested the need for a reparation order, arguing that the amount lost by ANZ was \u201cnegligible\u201d, given the bank\u2019s $2.36 billion profit in its last financial result.<\/p>\n
Foley had also advised Waller to set aside $50,000 that was originally going to cover expenses for a potential trial to instead be offered at sentencing for reparation.<\/p>\n
However, Waller chose to use these funds for his current business to ensure his employees would receive appropriate remuneration over the Christmas break.<\/p>\n
Considering the circumstances, Foley requested a starting point of three years\u2019 imprisonment for Waller, discounted to home detention.<\/p>\n
In deciding her sentence, Judge Lummis said the quantum of money received was the largest aggravating factor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is significant and none of those funds have been recovered.\u201d<\/p>\n
While there was no victim impact statement from ANZ, Judge Lummis said the bank\u2019s investigation required a high amount of work that \u201ccould have been spent in other ways\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a wider victim in terms of all of ANZ\u2019s customers who in some ways will be paying for any losses that ANZ makes, in a general way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge Lummis settled on a starting point of three-and-a-half years\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n
After considering his early guilty plea and his prior good behaviour, noting he had never been in court before, Judge Lummis discounted his sentence by 40%, resulting in 25 months\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n
Judge Lummis acknowledged that the sentence was higher than what would be considered appropriate for home detention, and offered \u201can act of mercy from the court\u201d for a further reduction to allow the end sentence to be one of home detention.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are someone who has stayed on the right side of the law and got on with making an honest living over a considerable period of time.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom everything I\u2019ve read about you, I take it the court will not be seeing you again and this has been a considerable shock to you. I hope you will make every effort to repay ANZ and make payments to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Waller was sentenced to 12 months\u2019 home detention at his Mairangi Bay property.<\/p>\n
Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.<\/p>\n
Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"However, AIG commission records associated with the ANZ legacy products indicated commission payments were made payable to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[116989,116988,12465,51,1643,138,6255,17330,20556,116990,71,6276,3368,1345,66305,78,33186,48055,111,139,69,1523,3373,5763,1529,6382,1299,1530],"class_list":["post-185380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-116989","tag-773k","tag-anz","tag-auckland","tag-bank","tag-business","tag-businessman","tag-commissions","tag-detention","tag-downgraded","tag-from","tag-gets","tag-guilty","tag-home","tag-imprisonment","tag-in","tag-laundering","tag-mercy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-pleaded","tag-sentence","tag-three","tag-took","tag-who","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}