The 2023 Law Power List: Numbers 21 – 30
21. Grant Chamberlain – Cartel Buster
Last Year – 15
Grant Chamberlain’s role with the Commerce Commission as Cartels Manager sounds innocuous enough but when prices, inflation, and interest rates are rising, it also casts a significant power upon the role and Grant Chamberlain has a key role in stamping out anti-competitive behaviour in the markets.
However, a lackluster performance from the Commission has seen a slide in rankings for Chamberlain with the Commission receiving poor reviews from business for failing to hit their KPIs. The Commission’s ‘Input Methodologies’ review dealing with regulation of pricing structures for key infrastructure issues like gas, electricity and airport charges.
The Commission’s weighty report on the issue demonstrated a lack of commercial clarity and consistency, which is troubling for ‘cartel busters’ attemptting to provide a competitive playing field for further prosperous growth.
Chamberlain runs a dozen in his team at the Commission, and obtained new power when cartel conduct became a criminal office under the Commerce Act – providing for penalties including seven years’ prison and fines of up to $500,000 for individuals and up to $10 million or more for businesses.
A robust approach in the current climate of cost increases and a tough economy make the role of economic monitoring more important than ever. Time will tell whether the efficacy is there.
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22. Phil Newland
Last Year –
Litigation funding has long been a hot topic, but as the major New Zealand operator in this area Phil Newland and his team, including former Supreme Court judge Bill Wilson KC, former high profile liquidator and company director Michael Stiassny, New Zealand Shareholder Association founder president Bruce Sheppard and lawyer Jonathan Woodhams.
Phil Newland founded LPF in 2009 following his career in law, business and finance with degrees in law and science form Victoria University and New York University and has pioneered some major litigation funding claims, including …
The headline-hogging Mainzeal decision has been the major news-du-jour in this space and according to Newland should have concluded several years before the lengthy and monumentally expensive case wound up before the Supreme Court with a judgment of $111 million against directors Dame Jenny Shipley, Richard Yan, Warren Tilby and Peter Gomm.
He claims the case took three times longer than expected and cost Mainzeal creditors the $10 million, loaned to the company creditors by LPF to fund the litigation, that was also three times what they anticipated when the matter commenced.
The case exemplifies the risky nature of litigation funding, but also strengthens the resolve of the company to continue in its battle to level the playing field when it comes to weaker plaintiffs taking on well-heeled defendants, usually backed by insurance or corporate funding and motivated to fight to the end, with or without success.
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“It’s difficult to understand why the directors and QBE chose to waste time and incur legal costs in their “no holds barred” strategy and delay tactics when they could have very easily chosen a different and far more responsible path – one that would have meant the creditors were paid earlier, and the directors truly acknowledged their culpability for the way they traded Mainzeal and the impact its collapse had on the creditors,” he wrote in a NZ Herald article in September.
“During the eight years, the directors had a number of choices. They could’ve taken any one of the three genuine settlement offers made by the liquidators, which were at amounts far less than what they’re now having to pay, or they could have accepted the High Court’s judgment in 2019, or Richard Yan could have made the Richina companies he controls repay the loans owed to Mainzeal or provide further capital from the Chinese shareholders.
23 Pip England
Last Year – 34
Chapman Tripp remain a powerhouse firm in New Zealand who have continued to grow their influence with major deals and innovation. The firm last year advised on a variety of complex deals requiring in-depth expertise, which provided the highest-value M&A transactions of any of the ‘golden triangle’ major firms, including Bell Gully and Russell McVeagh.
At the end of 2022 the firm advised Canadian pension fund-owned Connexa on its $1.076 billion deal to buy 2Degrees’ mobile towers. This year it advised Pepper Money on the acquisition of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation’s selldown of their residential mortgage securities, valued at $1.4 billion.
Among the recent deals put to bed by the firm have been an ongoing series of rapid-fire deals last year including a $250 million deal for Westpac on residential mortgage-backed securities, a Kiwibank $650 million credit bond deal and advising The Treasury on a $3 billion NZ dollar rates bond deal in the ‘green bond market’.
The firm’s diversification into a separate but affiliated patent law firm has been paying dividends with Chapman Tripp Patents (CT Patents) with two new patent attorneys joining the growing team in September 2023.
Pip England’s leadership of a firm sees its continued development. The M&A, property and corporate lawyer took the reigns at the leading firm last September, described as someone who ‘lives and breathes’ the firm’s values. He has been with the firm for over 30 years, making partner in 2001.
Well-regarded professionally and personally, he is intent on developing Chapman Tripp’s role as arguably the leading law firm in the country with 60 partners and 200 legal staff.
Across the major legal ranking publications like ‘Legal 500’ and ‘IFLR 1000’ the firm has more top tier rankings than any other firm and has its eyes firmly set upon cementing its position as not only a major player in the New Zealand legal market, but the legal player.
Under England’s leadership the firm has also launched its patent division to harness the growth in work from IP and tech developments and deals.
As with the other two ‘Golden Triangle’ Big Law firms, Chapman Tripp has worked to increase its gender diversity having 33 percent equity-sharing women partners in the LawFuel Gender Survey.
24. Natalie Walker
New Entrant
Manukau Crown Solicitor Natalie Walker heads a firm with almost 40 lawyers and handling the busiest criminal courts in the country.
Appointed at a relatively young age, the former Meredith Connell criminal partner, was conscious that she was outgunned on experience during the race to become Crown Solicitor.
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However, she says her firm’s “relative youth” could have worked in its favour, she told the New Zealand Herald.
She is married to former Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias’ son, Ned Fletcher, (pictured) who is also her law partner, a lawyer and historian specialising in research into New Zealand’s law and history.
The firm’s five directors have overseen a steady growth in business with the burgeoning prosecution work and have close to 40 lawyers now working from the Manukau offices.
25 Brent McAnulty
New Entrant
Brent McAnulty has stepped in to the shoes of former lawyer and Power List lawyer Simon Power as interim CEO of the State-owned broadcaster.
McAnulty once worked for Telecom (now Spark) for six years and previously for big law in the United Kingdom.
As General Counsel and Company Secretary for TVNZ, as well as Corporate Affairs Director, he has a deep understanding of the business he has spent working for in the last 14 years, until his appointment to the top job in a caretaker capacity when fellow lawyer and former National Party cabinet minister and Simon Power resigned in June 2023.
The TVNZ role will provide challenges. Advertising revenues slide and digital platforms emerge rapidly to change the revenue and business model for television.
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His earlier legal experience involved a legal role working for the British Medical Association and spending two years working in the London office of big law US firm Weil Gotshal and Manges before moving to the Telecom role in New Zealand.
26 Pip Greenwood
Although she retired from Russell McVeagh in 2018, Pip Greenwood remains a powerful figure in the New Zealand business and legal community. She has previously been a Power List entrant.
A former top dealmaker she was recently appointed a director of A2 Milk and is currently Chair of Westpac New Zealand, a director of Fisher & Paykel Healthcare and previously a director of Spark NZ.
She has received numerous legal awards, including being named ‘Dealmaker of the Year’ five times by a trade website.
She is also active in encouraging women in law and business and and twice been recognised as a finalist in the Women of Influence Awards.
27. Jackie Floyd – Fonterra Counsel
New Entrant
Taking over from Power List member Andrew Cordner (no. last year 23 and now Chief Legal Counsel at Te Whata Ora Health), Jackie Floyd has a major role with New Zealand’s major exporter.
The former Chapman Tripp principal, she joined Fonterra in 2020 from Vector, where she was Associate General Counsel.
The country’s major exporter with a turnover of $24 billion and a $1.6bn profit is a major enterprise by any standard and the legal issues arising are equally wide-ranging.
A raft of legal issues face the exporter, including law changes to boost its market dominance and the resulting backlash from those with environmental concerns. The Co-Operative’s ‘Scope 3’ emissions targets seek to achieve a 30 percent intensity reduction in on-farm emissions by 2030 from a 2018 baseline – reducing emissions intensity by tonne of FPCM (fat and protein corrected milk) collected by Fonterra.
The target is ambitious, but the pressure is on Fonterra.
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28 Karen Chung
Last Year – 46
SFO Chief Executive Karen Chang who stepped into the shoes of former CEO and Power List member Julie Read in April 2022. Julie Read was CEO since 2013. Karen Chang has a wealth of experience in everything from high stakes litigation to fashion and backpacking.
Like Read, Taiwanese-born Karen Chang has strong Australian roots having worked for Freehills where she worked in the defence of the first ever insider trading case taken by the Australian Securities & Investment Commission (ASIC) against Citibank.
A graduate in commerce and law from Auckland University, she has been admitted to practice in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
Following her Australian work she moved to New York, working in commercial litigation, and taking on some fashion design work to mix up the endless legal work routine, before backpacking through SOuth America and coming to New Zealand in 2011 through family connections (a married sister).
Working as a senior prosecutor at Meredith Connell she handled a range of white collar and other serious crime at the firm.
She took a job as head of enforcement at the Financial Markets Authority in 2017, responsible for FMA’s enforcement strategy and handling cases ranging from fair dealing issues to insider trading. She soon became acting Chief Counsel leading policy, governance, investigations and enforcement.
The FMA took action against the ANZ winning at Court of Appeal level before the bank’s leave to appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected and investors’ received funding help and assisted by former DLA Piper principal John Strahl to sue the bank, achieving a confidential settlement.
She is a keen and obvious advocate for greater diversity in the law, explaining in one interview, that a figure of around 22 per cent of law graduates being Asian New Zealanders was something that made her happy.
“Diversity of thought is really important, it’s about the experiences that you bring. I know what it’s like to be around people who are not confident speaking English, or to live with grandparents, or to come from a modest background.”
29 Paul Majurey
Last year – 45
Paul Majuryey at Atkins, Holm Majurey entered the list last year for the first time and moves up this year. He battled with newly elected mayor Wayne Brown who sought his resignation from the Auckland Council’s property arm but the lawyer, iwi leader, property developer and businessman has built his reputation as an increasingly influential force in Maori and RMA-related activities, as well as large scale urban developments in Auckland..
A highly experienced environmental and Maori law expert, he has headed Treaty negotiations and settlements for a dozen iwi in tribal collectives as well as chairing the Maunga Authority, a $115 million iwi investment fund and a tribal group that has partnered with a major developer to build more than 500 apartments in Auckland.
The son of a nurse and shearing gang rousie his involvement in major iwi and property matters has provided Majurey with a grounded background for his identity and professional work.
His involvement in the “village within a city, an urban kāinga” of 40 new apartment buildings with more than 3000 units on land within the established suburb of Ōwairaka Mt Albert was announced by him who announced a scheme with Ockham Residential for the newly-created, newly-named suburb, Maungārongo beside Unitec and the old Carrington Hospital.
30 Grant Pritchard – In-House & Wellness Advocate
New Entrant
ILANZ chairman and Spark Inhouse Counsel Grant Pritchard has been a major advocate for mental health issues in the workplace, following the tragedy of losing a workmate to suicide.
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Heading a group that involves one-third of the legal workforce, Pritchard’s advocacy for workplace issues give him significant influence.
Having spoken at conferences in New Zealand, Australia and elsewhere on a range of issues including emerging technologies, legal innovation and the mental health issues he has become a highly respected figure within the inhouse legal community, now representing around one-third of all working lawyers in the country.
His desire to achieve healthy and successful workplaces has also seen him found the mental health advocacy group HeadFit Foundation designed to create ‘mentall fit futures’ for New Zealanders.
Providing funding and celebrating healthy workplace practices through its awards, the first mental health awards of their kind in New Zealand, HeadFit has played a key role in developing better work practices for mental health issues for everyone.
Next: Power Lawyers 31 – 40
