Once You See It You Can't Unsee It: Highmark Homes Counsel Serious Misconduct
Highmark Homes & Samson Corporation
Counsel Join Heads vs Self Litigant Nicola Watkins
The Hidden Architecture: A "Tag-Team" Strategy Exposed
The discovery of a coordinated effort between David Hayes and Brett Martelli is exposed in this article; it reveals the hidden architecture used to dismantle my business and personal finances. While appearing as independent legal counsel in two separate cases against me, Martelli and Hayes were both working for Du Val Group Management Company—
For a long time, I moved through legal proceedings under a massive disadvantage while fighting a multi-millionaire corporation, Samson Corporation, over Covid Rent and entrapment in a lease without the ability to trade, alongside the long-standing Watkins vs Highmark Homes employment case regarding my constructive dismissal in 2017. Up until Friday 27 March 2026 I had no idea they already knew each other and worked for the same corporation.
Without legal aid or private counsel, I was forced to balance the survival of my business and the well-being of my family against a relentless tide of litigation. I relied solely on my own limited time and research, trying to navigate a world of legalese, complex forms,
Avoidance of Doubt Conflict of Interest
Verbatim Email Transcript: Highmark v Watkins (CIV-2024-404-800)
[1] Thursday, 29 August 2024 at 2:37 PM
From: Nicola Watkins
To: Murphy, Simone; leona@aclc.org.nz
"Can I please get what the latest judges instructions are or status of this case or what my next steps need to be and the dates asap and please include Leona from community law"
[2] Thursday, 29 August 2024 at 3:05 PM
From: Murphy, Simone
To: Nicola Watkins; leona@aclc.org.nz
"Good afternoon Nicola and Leona, I can advise a Creditor’s Application has been filed by the Judgment Creditor. The Creditor should serve you with a copy of this application. I can confirm there is a next event date on the 3
rd of October 2024 at 10:00am ."
[3] Tuesday, 10 September 2024 at 1:03 PM
From: Nicola Watkins
To: Murphy, Simone
Cc: Leona Chute; Brett Martelli
"Hi Simone
I have not been served with a creditors application.
I do not know who is representing Highmark Homes – can you please ask the applicant’s former lawyer Brett Martelli as he seems to have resigned
. [...]"
[4] Tuesday, 10 September 2024 at 1:10 PM
From: Brett Martelli
To: nicola@rsgates.co.nz
Cc: Leona Chute; Murphy, Simone; David Hayes
"Dear Nicola
I asked Frana Divich to take over acting for Samson. She now represents Samson.
David Hayes represents Highmark Homes. David does not live in Auckland. Therefore, he asked me to appear for him as his agent. However, David is still the lawyer for Highmark Homes. Please send al
l your correspondence regarding Highmark to Dav id."
[5] Tuesday, 10 September 2024 at 1:21 PM
From: nicola@rsgates.co.nz
To: Brett Martelli; Frana Divich
Cc: Leona Chute; Murphy, Simone; David Hayes
"Brett
Please tell the court and me how and why you got involved in the Highmark Homes case since you were acting for Samson Corporation?"
[6] Tuesday, 10 September 2024 at 2:38 PM
From: Brett Martelli
To: nicola@rsgates.co.nz
Cc: leona@aclc.org.nz; David Hayes; Frana Divich; Murphy, Simone
"Dear Nicola
To explain my relationship with David, I first need to mention the courts’ rules and their consequences.
The HC and DC rules require lawyers to file claims in the court closest to where a
defendant lives. [...] Therefore, lawyers regularly call other lawyers in the area to act as their agents.
David sometimes has matters in Auckland Courts but does not want to incur the cost of travelling to Auckland. Instead, he calls
me... to appear as his agent. [...] Since 2020, I have appeared as David’s agent in the Auckland HC and DC on many matters. In April this year, David asked me if I could appear as his agent for Highmark. I had not heard of Highmark before that."
Highmark Homes Co
Even when quizzed, Brett Martelli had two opportunities for full disclosure of the true nature of their relationship, but failed to disclose that he was a colleague of David Hayes working together in the Du Val Business in both his responses 10 September 2024 to the Court, copying in Frana Divich from Hearney Partners as acting for Samson Corporation, and Community Law who at that time were trying to find a Te Ara Ture Pro Bono Advocate to assist me. They stated that they tried but could not find anyone to do it, and in a meeting at their Auckland offices stated it was most likely just easier to go through the bankruptcy and the load was too heavy.
Exhibit A: Email from Brett Martelli dated 10 September 2024. In this "Administrative Lie," Martelli characterizes his involvement as a mere convenience for a colleague to save on travel costs, while omitting their shared, remunerated roles within the Du Val Group network.
Agent / Counsel move
- Duty of Candor
- Litigant in Person (Self-Represented Litigant)
- Clean Hands
When Martelli says he is an "Agent," he is claiming he has no "standing" (legal responsibility) for the strategy of the case—he’s just a "body in the room" for David Hayes.
Lawyers have an absolute duty to be candid (honest and open) with the Court.
The Breach: By not disclosing that they were both working for the Du Val Group, they breached this duty. The Court assumes opposing lawyers are independent. If they are secretly "teammates" via a third-party corporation, the Judge is being misled about the fairness of the fight.
The Court Rules (specifically the High Court Rules) state that Judges and Counsel should ensure that a "Litigant in Person" is not unfairly disadvantaged by technicalities.
The Reality: The use of 7:00 AM process servers wasn't a legal necessity; it was a tactical choice. Both Highmark (Hayes) and Samson (Martelli) already had a established history of communicating with me via email and had the authority to serve documents electronically. Instead, they chose to "show up everywhere" simultaneously:
- At my home: Attempting service at 7:00 AM to disrupt my family's peace before the day began.
- At my business: Sending servers into my showroom during business hours to create professional embarrassment in front of clients.
- On the phone: Coordinated "stalking" calls from private detectives while I was dealing with family medical emergencies and trying to keep my family business operating.
This "everywhere at once" approach is the definition of a war of attrition. By bypassing the simple efficiency of an email, they forced me into constant, high-stress physical confrontations. This is a clear abuse of the "Personal Service" rule, weaponizing it to create a state of administrative and psychological exhaustion.
There is a legal maxim: "He who comes to equity must come with clean hands."
Watkins Argument:
If Highmark’s counsel were hiding their professional ties while asking the Judge to bankrupt me lining up in position 1 and 2, their "hands are not clean.
This post serves as a formal public disclosure of this evidence and a primary exhibit for a Memora
For years, I believed I was fighting two independent legal batt
The "Administrative" Lie
Whe
The Truth: The PwC Statutory Managers' Report into the Du Val Group collapse has now revealed that both David Hayes and Bre
Table 1: The Hidden Reality (The Counsel Network)
What was happening behind the scenes that the Court and
| Entity / Individual | Role in My Case | The Undisclosed Connection | Evidence Reference |
| David Hayes | Lead Counsel (Highmark) | Du Val Consultant: Officially listed as a creditor/ | |
| Brett Martelli | Agent (Highmark) / Lead (Samson) | Unified Network: Acted as the "Auckland Agent" for Hayes while simultaneously leading the Samson debt escalation. | |
| Hunwick Law | Solicitor of Record | The Du Val Hub: The common firm used for both the Du Val Lindeman v FMA case and my Highmark filings. | |
| The Clarkes | Showroom "Visitors" | The Principals: Visited my shop in March 2024 during the height of the legal "squeeze" without identifying themselves. |
The Experience on the Ground: A 24/7 Assault
This was not a standard legal process; it was a psychological and administrative "pincer movement" documented by the exact dates and times of their strikes.
Table 2: The Attrition Timeline
| Date | Location | Action / Event | Impact on Business & Family |
| Mar 2024 | Place of Work | Business Showroom walk-in | Charlotte & Kenyan Clarke visit showroom; declined to fill in the enquiry form providing an email address or phone number for follow up. |
| Mar 2024 | Place of Work | Service of Docs | Document Server shows up at business by Highmark/Hayes. |
| Mar 2024 | Place of Work | Service of Docs | Document Server arrives for Samson/Martelli at business address. |
| 10 Sep 24 | The "Agent" Email | Martelli claims in an email he is just a "stand-in" for Hayes, misleads me about the nature of their relationship and conceals the Du Val link. | |
| 13 Sep 24 | Phone calls | Stalking phone calls for personal service attempts. | Detectives harrass me to meet them while I am on my way to the hospital - sick family member. I have already engaged in email correspondence with Martelli and tell them execute email service as usual. They refuse and keep pushing. Sitting on the side of the road I call the police. |
| 18 Sep 24 | Phone calls | Personal Private Detective Service Attempt | Private Detective contacts me attempts to serve documents for Hayes at home address. I call the Police. Highmark and Samson both have previously served me by way of email service and had authority already to email. This was an intimidation tactic. |
| 18 Sep 24 | 03:21 PM | Second Service | Second service on the same day. |
| 25 Sep 24 | 01:21 AM | Electronic Filing | Watkins files proceeding a claim for $1.36m in Tauranga High Court, juggling business, family and two court cases. Still don't realise that the two Counsel are related. |
| 12 Feb 25 | Court | Judicial Ruling | Judge Brittain cites Samson debt to finalize the bankruptcy move. Costs previously claimed and awarded to both Samson and Highmark Homes added including the bill for personal service. |
The Registry: Manipulating the Record
Hayes and Martelli "played" the registrars, exploiting administrative gaps to change the narrative. While they told the Court I was "failing to file," they were withholding email service, stalking me with private detectives to create stress and confuse and disorientate me, and shifting dates to create a t
All of this took me away from my work and my family in an already challenging post covid and recession environment. Hayes and Martelli demonstrated a
Court IT Issues not new
Beyond the conduct of counsel, the integrity of the record itself was compromised by systemic failures. On 31 January 2025, Registrar Simone Murphy Auckland High Court Bankruptcy Hearing admitted that an internal IT investigation was launched because critical correspondence was simply not reaching her.
This "disappearance" of documents was so severe that the Court of Appeal (via Lily-Ann Grant) was forced to intervene to retrieve the missing Highmark files that the High Court had failed to produce. Despite the gravity of this, the outcome of the investigation was never disclosed to me; when I sought answers, the Registry simply stated the case was at an end and they would no longer respond to my emails. There was a common thread throughout Watkins ordeals with the Court that documents were missing, and documents lists were not forthcoming, creating a question over whether all relevant evidence was before the Judge. This point has also been argued in Watkins appeals however dismissed by the Judiciary.
The Psychological Toll: Relentless and All-Consuming
Constantly being slammed by the court, seeing my appeal cases thrown out time and again and applications being labelled of "an abuse of process" and an attempt at "re-litigation", meanwhile email records show the timeline and overlapping efforts to have her evidence read:
- September 2024. While contesting the bankruptcy and filing defamation proceedings as a set-off filed 25 September 2024 for the 3 October 2024 hearing, I was concurrently engaged in the Employment Court matter EMPC 30
7/2023.
- Ca
se Reference 2023 NZEmpC 194. In this decision, Judge Kathryn Beck acknowledged my application for a full hearing of the entire matter on a de novo basis. However, the Court narrowed the scope, ruling that the application would instead be treated only as a challenge to the refusal to reopen the applications . This effectively neutralized my ability to present the full evidence of the underlying employment dispute.
- 31 January 2025. High Court Registrar Simone Mu
rphy admitted that an internal IT investigation was launched because critical email correspondence was not reaching her desk in relation to the Highmark Bankruptcy hearing. This resulted in a fragmented re cord where key evidence was missing during the final stages of the High Court proceeding s. David Hayes took advantage of this and handed a paper copy to Judge Brittain on the day of the bankruptcy hearing of an ERA decision that had previously been removed from the public record, and of which was defamatory to my family and our busine sses, and Judge Brittain accepted it into evidence no quest ions. This is another point that I raised in the hearing which will be on the court transcript but was sanitized from the decision and the narrative that is now live on the internet.
- February 2025. The administrative disappearance of documents was so significant that Lily-Ann
Grant from the Court of Appeal had to intervene, formally emailing the High Court Registry back to ensure they located and provided the missing files required for the Appeal reco rd.
- March 2026. In formal submissions to the Ministry of Justice, I documented that the application for a de novo hearing was altered without my ag
reement. Despite seeking transparency regarding the prior IT failures and missing documents, the Registry stated the case was at an end and they would no longer respond to inquiri es.
Email evidence confirms that Highmark and Samson Hayes and Martelli tracks were running concurrently, which contributed to the mass confusion and administrative exhausti
Highmark Counsel knew exactly what they were doing—using the complexity of the law to keep me in a state of constant confusion.
In the New Zealand legal system, lawyers are bound by the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care Rules 2008. The actions documented above point to significant breaches, particularly regarding Rule 11 Administration of Justice
- Rule 11 – Misleading the Court. By failing to disclose their shared professional ties and utilizing a fragmented Registry record, counsel allowed the Court to proceed on a narrative that was factually incomplete
.
- Conflict of Interest and Non-Disclosure. They failed to disclose their shared professional ties via Du Val and Hunwick Law while litigating against me.
- Duty of Candor. By appearing as independent actors, they misled the Court's understanding of the litigation's true nature.
- Unfair Pressure. The tag-team timing of service and filings was a calculated strike against a self-represented litigant's stability, breaching the requirement to avoid unnecessary distress.
The Deception in Black and White
The screenshots of emails from David Hayes and Brett Martelli show the real story. When viewe
They blatantly and willingly failed to disclose their connection to Judge Brittain even upon his first question that was about who is in the room and deciding whether he would hear them speak. Judge Brittain specifically stated that he did not need to hear from Mr Martelli as a "witness". Martelli's presence in the court room and this questioning which would put the whole hearing into a totally different context is completely ommitted from the Registry Records.
This article has been emailed to Samson Corporation, Highmark Homes Ltd, David Hayes, Brett Martelli, Frana Divich, The Office of the Chief Justice, Minister of Police, Minister of Justice, Official Correspondence at the Ministry of Justice, and the Judicial Conduct Commissioner on 28 March 2026 seeking their further comment.
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