Service

Competition & antitrust

Providing commercially astute advice for critical projects and inquiries

Clients faced with a competition issue value our ability to distil a high stakes, complex situation and provide clear advice.

The New Zealand Commerce Commission is increasingly active in exercising powers to discourage anti‑competitive behaviour and we’re seeing an increase in investigations into anti‑competitive conduct, including market surveys. 

Taking a collaborative approach, our team has successfully represented clients across a diverse range of sectors including energy, financial services, infrastructure and telecommunications. Our core clients include the nation’s largest corporates, key government and financial institutions, major primary sector operatives, major infrastructure providers and multinationals operating in New Zealand. 

Our team of internationally recognised competition and antitrust specialists provides first-class advice on:

  • merger approvals
  • business-critical investigatory and litigation assignments
  • cartel activity including price fixing
  • criminal competition and consumer law
  • abuse of market power concerns
  • arrangements with competition implications
  • contentious matters including Commerce Commission investigations and precedent-setting competition law litigation
  • market studies
  • compliance audits and training programmes.

Read: New Zealand competition and regulatory developments (September 2022)

  • Acting for Z Energy on the merger clearance process for its acquisition by Ampol.
  • Advising EBOS on successfully obtaining New Zealand merger clearance in 2022 for its acquisition of the LifeHealthcare business.
  • Advising Foodstuffs on the Commerce Commission’s second market study, into retail grocery.
  • Advising Aon plc on its New Zealand merger clearance application to acquire Willis Towers Watson.
  • Acting for Pacific Radiology Group on its acquisitions of Auckland Radiology Group and Bay Radiology in parallel transactions.
  • Providing counsel to Philip Morris International, the world’s leading tobacco company, in the most significant misuse of market power case to come before the New Zealand courts in over a decade.
  • Advising Cargotec on its New Zealand clearance application to acquire Konecranes.
  • Advising EROAD on its successful merger clearance application to acquire Coretex.
  • Acting for Pfizer on the New Zealand merger clearance process for the combination of its off-patent branded and generics business Upjohn with Mylan, and acting for Pfizer on the New Zealand merger clearance process for the combination of its GlaxoSmithKline’s consumer healthcare businesses.
  • Representing PGG Wrightson on the sale of its seeds business to Danish company DLF Seeds, in relation to the clearance process with the New Zealand Commerce Commission.
  • Advising Netflix, Amazon, Sony, Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros, Paramount, and Universal Studios on Government’s proposed reform of the antitrust treatment of intellectual property rights.
  • Defending New Zealand’s largest retailer, The Warehouse Group, on criminal competition and consumer law charges brought by the Commerce Commission following an extensive investigation into subsidiary, Noel Leeming.
Ranked Tier One for competition work and as an elite firm (GCR 100).Chambers Asia Pacific 2024 | Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2024 | Global Competition Review 100 (22nd edition)