[1] OIC consent was required for foreign investments that would control 25% or more of businesses or property worth more than NZ$10 million.
By August 2014 the Overseas Investment Office had received a further 33 applications by foreigners to buy large blocks of farmland.
[5] In 2016 further concerns were raised when it was revealed the OIO failed to vet two overseas buyers, Rafael and Federico Grozovsky, who bought a farm in Onetai for $6 million.
The sale was approved by the OIO in 2014 but the agency was unaware the brothers who bought the property were convicted of polluting a river in Argentina in 2012.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters commented: "It's a disgrace – this is 2016 and we've had a rubber stamp operation going back almost two decades.