Our Minter Ellison Rudd Watts legal experts work across five divisions and collectively attract some of the most sought after clients and deals in the market.
Here is a snapshot of some of the notable deals, listed by division, that we have undertaken in recent times:
Banking and Financial Services
The Banking and Financial Services division is market leading. We act for all New Zealand's major banks, all the leading insolvency practitioners and many other participants in the finance sector. Our expertise spans the whole sector from acquisition finance, debt capital markets and regulatory and insolvency matters.
The banking and financial services division continues to attract high profile work, such as advising a banking syndicate on Fisher & Paykel Appliances Group’s recent restructuring and equity raising, a major international financial institution in its application to become a registered bank in New Zealand and on the refinancing of Pike River Coal's debt facilities with banks and other financial institutions.
Employment
Our Employment division is the largest specialist employment team in any law firm in New Zealand, with over 20 lawyers including 5 Partners. We advise public and private sector clients on all employment-related matters from drafting HR and employment documents to dismissing employees for serious misconduct. A typical day’s work can include meeting with a sports client to discuss how to reorganise their coaching structure, advising an international corporate on transferring a senior employee from the UK to NZ (including immigration requirements), commencing a bullying investigation for an employer, and writing an opinion on whether an employee’s comments on facebook justify dismissal.
Our team members often appear as counsel in the Employment Relations Authority and the Employment Court. We also appear regularly in confidential mediations on a range of employment-related matters. We act for the Department of Corrections in many cases in the Authority and the Court including successfully defending a challenge by a union to prevent the Department from implementing the double-bunking of prison cells and successfully opposing the union’s subsequent application for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal. We also advise Qantas Airways affiliate Jetconnect on contentious and non-contentious matters. Most recently we have been acting for a number of private sector clients in defending health and safety prosecutions by the Department of Labour.
Corporate and Commercial
Our Corporate division is a strong force in the general corporate and commercial sector, drawing on a wide range of expertise to provide a full service to clients. Our corporate division includes a number of specialist legal teams covering Mergers & Acquisitions, Competition and Regulatory, Intellectual Property, Tax and Public Law. Our clients include corporates, SMEs, Government, banks, private equity firms, investment banks and offshore businesses.
The corporate division continues to attract high profile and notable work. Recent Mergers & Acquisitions work includes advising Goldman Sachs on the sale of an 80.1% stake in the JBWere private wealth management business to National Australia Bank, Synlait Milk Limited on recent capital raising from Bright Dairy, Affinity Equity Partners on its acquisition of Tegel Foods, Union Agriculture Group on its takeover offer for NZ Farming Systems Uruguay Limited and Agria (Singapore) Pte Limited on its takeover offer for PGG Wrightson.
The corporate division has one of New Zealand’s leading private equity practices with clients including Next Capital, Pencarrow Private Equity, Direct Capital and Affinity Equity Partners. Other key clients of the Corporate and Commercial team include Two Degrees Mobile Limited, Navman Wireless, JB Were, Southern Cross Healthcare, NZX Limited and Cloudy Bay.
Real Estate
Our Real Estate division includes experts in the areas of commercial and residential property, construction, environment and resource planning, climate change and infrastructure.
The team advises clients on commercial property acquisitions, leasing and re-developments, including construction contracts and environmental issues, forestry purchases, mining, Overseas Investment applications and aquaculture ventures.
Maori land issues are an important consideration when dealing with real estate in New Zealand and our team is well versed and experienced in dealing with this complex area.
The real estate team has acted on several of the largest and most notable deals in New Zealand in recent years, such as; advising KordaMentha on the receivership of Crafar Farms including the proposed sale of multiple farms and a parallel tender process for back-up offers (value in excess of $220 million); advising Westpac New Zealand Limited on the design, build and lease Agreement of the new Britomart Headquarters; acting for AMP NZ Office in major multiple CBD rent reviews of prime office buildings in Auckland and Wellington with key anchor tenants; and advising Allied Finance on various sales from acquisition of the Hanover portfolio including five mile property in Queenstown.
Dispute Resolution
Our Dispute Resolution team works with a diverse client base on all aspects of corporate and commercial disputes resolution including competition and regulatory law, securities, trade practices, insolvency and recovery, banking, construction and environmental law. A number of our lawyers are also LEADR trained mediators.
Our team has a track record of advising on some of the biggest cases in New Zealand, these include the recent receiverships of Kawarau Falls Station development in Queenstown, Whisper Cove beachside development, Line 7, and the ABC early childhood learning companies. We acted for Karum Group LLC (a US based company) in proceedings against Fisher & Paykel Finance and are acting for KordaMentha (receivers of Crafar Farms) on a security priority dispute over a large number of cows with a stock financier.
The team has also acted for Shell Exploration NZ in proceedings brought by Todd against Shell and OMV in relation to the Pohokura gas field. Todd’s eleven causes of action included allegations of breach of the Commerce Act 1986. Todd’s claims, including its Commerce Act claims, were dismissed following a 10-week hearing in the High Court.
