Import and export compliance review for growing NZ businesses

This is often useful when your business is starting to trade internationally, adding new product lines, changing suppliers, entering new markets or realising that internal processes have grown without much legal review. It can also help if different teams handle shipping, customer communications and record-keeping, because compliance issues often sit across those functions rather than in one document. A review can highlight where your current setup may need attention before problems become more expensive, but it is not a promise that every regulator issue or operational risk will be eliminated.

Common issues include gaps between what the business thinks happens and what staff actually do, missing or inconsistent paperwork, unclear responsibility for checks and approvals, and processes that have not kept pace with growth. Some businesses also find that supplier arrangements, product descriptions, customer-facing statements or record-keeping practices create extra risk. The right drafting depends on your actual data flows, including what you collect, why you use it and who receives it, so we look at the operational reality as well as the documents you already use.

Business practices matter a lot. A business can have decent paperwork on file but still face risk if the real process on the ground is inconsistent, incomplete or handled differently across teams. That is why the review is broader than a document-only check. We consider how your business operates in practice, including who handles information, approvals and communications. In some cases, the factual working arrangement can matter as much as the contract wording, particularly where responsibilities are split between suppliers, logistics providers and internal staff.

No. It can reduce avoidable risk by making the key legal issues clearer, but the outcome still depends on how the documents and processes are used in practice. Import and export obligations can depend on the products involved, the jurisdictions in play, the documents used and the way your operations actually run day to day. Regulator requirements and third-party decisions also sit outside Sprintlaw's control. The value of the review is that it gives you a clearer picture of the main legal issues and practical next steps, rather than a blanket assurance about every future outcome.

After the review, you receive written findings and recommendations for the agreed scope. That may help you decide whether you need updated documents, internal process changes or further legal work on a specific issue. If the review identifies a separate legal task, such as revising a contract or checking a particular communication, that can usually be scoped as follow-on work. The fixed-fee for this service is for the review and advice itself, not ongoing representation, implementation support or management of the whole compliance function.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the Import Export Compliance Review service, pricing starts from $900.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.