A former senior Auckland District Health Board manager has pleaded guilty to corruption charges after accepting more than $258,000 in undisclosed payments from medical equipment and software companies.
Garry Gorham entered guilty pleas in court today to three charges of accepting gifts by an agent and one charge of disclosing official information, according to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which brought the case.
The first three charges related to $223,112 Gorham received from two medical equipment suppliers – Alpine Medical Hardware Limited and Device Technologies New Zealand – both of which supplied equipment to the health board before it was disestablished.
He also admitted receiving approximately $35,428 from Scotland-based Newgate Technology Limited and/or New Zealand company Technology Solutions Industry Limited, which provided medical software to the district health board, after disclosing official information on six occasions between April 2012 and August 2014.
In return for the payments, Gorham was alleged to have assisted the companies with health board business and passed on official information to one of the firms.
He never disclosed the payments to his employer, despite being obligated to do so.
Charges were first filed in the case in March 2022, where the two defendants initially pleaded not guilty.
The Auckland District Health Board, along with all other health boards, was dissolved and merged into Health New Zealand later that year.
Ex-DHB manager to be sentenced in August
SFO director Karen Chang said Gorham had put his own financial interests above the patients he had been employed to serve.
"New Zealanders must have confidence that procurement decisions in the public sector are not influenced by personal gain, particularly where health and safety could be impacted," she said in a statement.
"Mr Gorham put his own financial interests above the patients he was employed to serve. This was an egregious breach of the trust placed in him by his employer and the public.
"Behaviour such as this undermines trust in our government and public services. It also distorts fair decision-making and results in an uneven playing field for other suppliers.
"It is critical we take action to stop it taking hold."
Gorham is due to be sentenced on August 10.
Other defendant sentenced to community detention
In October 2025, Alpine Medical Hardware director William MacKenzie was sentenced to four months' community detention for his role in the bribery and corruption case.
Payments were made as inducements or rewards for the manager to act in Alpine’s favour – including placing orders with the company and approving its invoices, a spokesperson for the SFO said at the time.
An SFO investigation found that between January 2001 and June 2007, the health service paid Alpine approximately $52,000 per year.
After the senior manager started work in 2007, the Auckland District Health Board paid Alpine approximately $400,000 per year until 2016.
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