Lawyers in New Zealand

Ashton Welsh

Consultant

Simpson Grierson

Barney Cumberland

Partner

Simpson Grierson

Barret Blaylock

Barret is a Partner in our Commercial Property Team.

Hesketh Henry

Ben Hickson

Ben is a partner in Hesketh Henry’s corporate and commercial team. He has 15 years of experience in corporate and commercial transactions across New Zealand, Singapore, and Myanmar. Prior to rejoining Hesketh Henry, Ben was a senior associate at Stephenson Harwood LLP in Singapore, specialising in cross-border M&A and foreign direct investment deals in the region. Ben’s extensive business network across South-East Asia complements and adds depth to Hesketh Henry’s growing Asia Practice. At Hesketh Henry, Ben advises on M&A transactions, foreign investment, joint venture arrangements, corporate governance matters, and commercial licencing.. He supports international investors with acquisitions in New Zealand and assists his clients to navigate regulatory requirements under the Overseas Investment Act. He has particular expertise in the telecommunications and forestry sectors. In addition to his corporate and cross border M&A expertise, with his early grounding and extensive experience in New Zealand property law, Ben has advised real estate developers, hotel operators and other property investors on real estate acquisitions, commercial development, disposals, leasing and other property related work across New Zealand and South-East Asia. Ben also advises clients with commercial operations across the Pacific Islands. He is an executive committee member of the New Zealand-Fiji Business Council.

Hesketh Henry

Ben Russell

Ben is a dispute resolution specialist with broad experience in commercial litigation and insolvency law. He advises clients on a range of commercial issues including contract, property, insurance, and shareholder disputes. He regularly represents clients as lead counsel in the High Court and in mediations. Ben often acts for clients in the property and agribusiness sectors, and represents them in disputes about matters such as leases, caveats, agreements for sale and purchase, and ownership of land. Throughout his career, Ben has been involved in advising stakeholders in complex corporate insolvencies, particularly in relation to contentious aspects and bringing claims to recover and protect assets. Lane Neave applies a strategic and pragmatic approach to resolving commercial disputes. As the head of our dispute resolution practice, Ben leads a team of lawyers with a wide range of skills that can be applied to help achieve our clients’ goals.

Lane Neave

Ben Upton

Partner

Simpson Grierson

Bianca Tree

Partner

MinterEllisonRuddWatts

Bill Loutit

Partner

Simpson Grierson

Bradley Alcorn

Partner

Fee Langstone

Brendan Cash

Partner

Dentons New Zealand

Brian Coburn

Brian is a partner who practices in the commercial property sector. He is a highly regarded commercial property expert with over 30 years’ experience. He specialises in premium office property sales, acquisitions and leasing. A large part of Brian’s practice has involved representing offshore high net worth investors over the past 20 years in the acquisition and leasing of an extensive portfolio of premium commercial office buildings throughout the country. He is highly trusted by such investors to act as their domestic representative for the purpose of acquiring commercial investment properties and negotiating leasing agreements with corporate and public sector tenants. Notably, his work has also included assisting offshore investors to obtain regulatory consent for the acquisition of islands and other sensitive land in this country. Brian is also an expert in retirement village law in this country. He has advised both large and small corporate operators in the village industry on best practice regulatory compliance and documentation. He has represented Metlifecare Limited, one of the leading retirement village operators in the country and also smaller fresh field village developments such as Speldhurst Village , The Palms Lifestyle Village and Richmond Villas.

Hesketh Henry

Bridget Parham

Partner

Tompkins Wake

Briony Davies

Partner

MinterEllisonRuddWatts

Bronwyn Heenan

Partner

Simpson Grierson

Bruce Bernachhi

Partner

Dentons New Zealand

Bryce Davey

Partner

Tompkins Wake

Caitlin Hadlee

Caitlin is a litigator specialising in entertainment law and intellectual property law, together with technology disputes. She has particular expertise in disputes relating to copyright infringement, trade mark infringement, defamation, consumer protection law, negligence, competition and contractual disputes. She prides herself on making litigation as smooth, efficient and stress free as possible for her clients and she is frequently praised for her careful yet commercially workable advice and clear communication style. Caitlin represents significant rights holders, as well as individual authors, artists and start-ups, across the music, art, fashion, gaming, software and film industries. She also frequently advises technology, telecommunications and television /film industry clients, who need to use the rights of content creators as part of their products or projects. She regularly appears for clients in Courts ranging from the District Court to the Court of Appeal and she also appears as counsel at hearings before specialist trade mark tribunals such as IPONZ and IP Australia.

Hudson Gavin Martin

Calvin Luo

Calvin specialises in corporate law and advises on transactions such as business sales and acquisitions, corporate restructures, capital raisings, joint ventures, shareholder agreements and employee share schemes. He has extensive experience in private equity and venture capital mergers and acquisitions and has acted on sale and purchase transactions of businesses ranging from SMEs to large multinational corporates. Recent transactions he has been involved in include the sale of the OnSend courier business to Freightways and the acquisition of FitSW, a fitness SaaS platform based in the US, by MacroActive. Calvin has worked with start-ups of all stages, from advising founders on how to structure a proposed venture to assisting with external capital raises with institutional investors. His experience in having acted company-side and investor-side on capital raises of all sizes give him insight into what parties look for and common pitfalls, which enables him to help his clients achieve better outcomes and complete the transaction more efficiently. Calvin is passionate about gaming and emerging technologies such as blockchain and AI. He has advised both in relation to traditional games media through his work for Legend Story Studios and Geo AR Games, and in relation to more nascent sectors of the industry such as web3 gaming. Calvin is a presenter at the New Zealand Game Developers Conference.

Hudson Gavin Martin

Campbell Featherstone

Partner

Dentons New Zealand

Campbell Stewart

Partner

Tompkins Wake

Carl Blake

DLA Piper New Zealand

Carlo Wan

Carlo specialises in all aspects of financial services, financial markets and regulatory matters. He also provides advice on all aspects of corporate law ranging from mergers and acquisitions, corporate structuring, commercial contracts and investment funds. Carlo’s clients include internationally listed and unlisted corporates, Chinese state-owned entities, financial institutions, security brokerages and international consumer brands. Notable work includes: acting for the Ullrich family on the sale of Ullrich Aluminium Co Ltd to Vulcan Steel Limited for NZ$165m; acting for Up Fintech Holding Limited on its IPO on the NASDAQ for approximately US$104m; advising a PRC Fortune Global 500 company on divesting its forestry asset for NZ$45.6m; advising a NASDAQ listed entity on share issuance requirements; advising the largest credit union in New Zealand on its internal restructuring; advising various international security brokerages on New Zealand related compliance and regulatory matters, including obtaining FMA exemptions and preparation of AML policies; assisting on the incorporation of various finance companies including obtaining the relevant FSP registration, advising and advised on all aspects of AML compliance and other regulatory matters; advising a solar company listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange on its product entry into New Zealand; and advising various Hong Kong and Chinese listed entities on due diligence and M&A transactions in New Zealand. Before joining Lane Neave, Carlo worked for national law firms in both New Zealand and Australia.

Lane Neave

Catalijne Pille

Special Counsel - Health and Safety

Anthony Harper

Cathy Quinn

Consultant

MinterEllisonRuddWatts