Surprise rates bill behind questionable negotiation with Wilson Parking competitor, court told

Thursday, 18 June 2026

A Wilson Parking client once had to pay the Christchurch City Council double rates because the parking giant “dropped the ball” on compliance matters.

Udai Sarin, whose family owns and/or operates hotels across New Zealand, including the Observatory Hotel in the Arts Centre, told Employment Court Judge Helen Doyle he considered switching the management of a Gloucester St property from Wilson to its competitor, Mainland Parking, because of the error.

Doyle is overseeing a case against Mainland and its founder, Peter Turner, a former Wilson employee, who is accused of several contract breaches, including allegedly using insider information to start his business.

On Thursday, the fourth day of a four-week trial, Doyle heard evidence related to Turner’s alleged breach of a restraint of trade.

Because Employment Court proceedings begin with the plaintiff and its evidence, Turner’s side of the story might not be heard for at least another week. But in cross examinationhis lawyers have begun to challenge the validity of Turner’s year-long restraint period and Wilson’s suggestion that Turner did anything nefarious.

Sarin’s negotiations with Turner began in August 2024, a couple of weeks before Turner’s restraint of trade was due to expire.

Turner asked Sarin to keep their conversations confidential, he said, and told him Wilson was not to know he was in the market yet. Sarin was asked to call Turner before he gave Wilson notice, if his deal was accepted.

The details of the proposed deals between Sarin, Mainland and Wilson are commercially sensitive, but Turner’s offer was significantly better than the existing rent. Sarin ultimately stuck with Wilson because it was willing to help pay for upfront site upgrades to meet the city council’s requirements.

Turner’s lawyer, Harriet Beaven, quoting Sarin from an email he wrote at the time, said Wilson had “totally dropped the ball”. Sarin accepted he said this, but later described paying double rates as “annoying”, as opposed to a significant financial setback.

Sarin did not agree requesting to keep negotiations confidential was a typical way of doing business, when asked by Beaven.

“People have got different ways of negotiating … I prefer to do things by picking up the phone,” he said.

Another landlord witness for Wilson, retired Presbyterian deacon Paul Crack, appeared to have heard about Turner’s company long before his restraint of trade period ended.

Crack recalled a meeting in August 2023 with Turner and a Wilson senior executive , who had name suppression, about the management of car parking at Knox Church in Dunedin.

During the meeting, which was about a fortnight before Turner left the company, the men told Crack a new parking company might be set up and it may wish to offer its services to Knox Church, he said.

Crack said Mainland Parking made an offer in November 2024, but this was after Turner’s restraint of trade expired, and the Church turned it down.

Earlier in the week, Turner’s lawyers began to challenge the length of Turner’s restraint of trade. The year-long restraint was in place from the moment he started working for Wilson, even as an operations manager, which lawyer Dean Russ described as “keeping car parks clean”.

Wilson, through its chief executive Ryan Orchard, said Turner’s roles had never been “low level”.

Turner never disputed the length of time and it never came up, Orchard told the Court on Wednesday.

Turner resigned and left Wilson Parking in early September 2023 for a job with City Care.

By April 2024, he incorporated Mainland Parking and, according to evidence to be explored later in the trial, he began negotiating agreements with landlords.

He officially began operating car parks in December 2024.