Get to know Shirley
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Shirley Chan graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in French and History. She was admitted to the bar in February 2018.
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Get to know Greg
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Greg Potter completed a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Management at the University of Auckland. He gained commercial dispute resolution experience at a specialist litigation firm while completing the final six months of his degrees in 2019. He joined Fee Langstone in January 2020.
Read MoreGreat results in the Legal 500 Asia-Pacific 2020 rankings
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The Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2020 rankings have just been released and we are delighted to have retained our top tier firm status for insurance.
Chambers Asia-Pacific Rankings 2020
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We are very pleased to announce Fee Langstone was ranked in Band 1 for Insurance in the 2020 Chambers Asia-Pacific Rankings. Philippa Fee was named as a Notable Practitioner and was ranked as Band 1 Lawyer for Insurance. Partner Pauline Davies was also singled out as a Band 2 Lawyer for Shipping.
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Solicitor’s advice in the Petrie dish: restrained from acting
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Fruit Shippers Ltd v Petrie and Noboa [2019] NZHC 2694
In this recent High Court decision, Chapman Tripp was restrained from acting in a proceeding where it had previously provided corporate and strategic advice to the defendants.
Read MoreCause the crash, pay the price (of a courtesy car)
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Court of Appeal upholds High Court decision on liability for cost of hiring replacement car
Frucor Beverages Limited and Ors v Blumberg and Ors [2019] NZCA 547
The Court of Appeal recently upheld the High Court decision of Blumberg v Frucor Beverages Ltd, finding that an at-fault driver (or their insurer) is liable for the cost of a not-at-fault driver’s replacement hire vehicle following a collision.
Read More2019 Client Function
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On Thursday 17 October, we held our annual client function. This year we had an ‘Area 51 & Other Conspiracies’ theme and enjoyed getting creative and dressing up as everything from extra-terrestrials to US military personnel. A special mention to partner Matthew Atkinson who had most of his body painted blue! It was a weird and wonderful evening and we were thrilled to see some of our clients donning handmade tinfoil hats in the spirit of the occasion. Thank you all for coming along, and we look forward to next year’s even
Read MoreClass action to include all potential members
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In a landmark decision, the Court of Appeal recently granted leave for a class action to be brought against government-owned settlement agency Southern Response on an opt-out basis.
Read MoreConstruction dispute fast-track a potential trap for design professionals
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The Construction Contracts Act 2002 (CCA) was meant to ensure money was paid, quickly and efficiently, to parties to a construction contract. But, because of recent amendment, it now represents a potential trap for design professionals to fall into.
Read MoreMental Health Awareness Week at FL
/Last week, we at Fee Langstone took some time out of our busy days for mindfulness and self-care as part of Mental Health Awareness Week. Each day we enjoyed a different wellness activity.
FL Staff working hard at Eat My Lunch HQ
On Monday, we got a chance to showcase our culinary skills helping prepare and pack lunches with the amazing volunteers at Eat My Lunch. This business works to ensure that for every lunch purchased, one is provided to a school child. To check out their great work visit: https://www.eatmylunch.nz/
On Tuesday, a group of solicitors and support staff took some time to calm and centre ourselves with lunchtime yoga. This gave us the opportunity to slow down and relieve stress, while also reducing muscle tension.
Mindfulness Colouring (inside the lines of course!)
Wednesday was an inside kind of day, and we had fun with some mindful colouring-in. While being a pleasurable pastime in itself, mindful colouring has been shown to decrease anxiety and lessen symptoms of stress.
We braved stormy weather on Thursday lunchtime to walk the pink Lightpath. (Reports of thunder and lightning may have been greatly exaggerated.) Kit, our fantastic, fluffy Associate (pictured), led the way. If you are looking for walks around the Auckland region check out: https://at.govt.nz/cycling-walking/cycle-walking-maps/
Kit, Senior Fluff Associate
We wrapped up the week with a delicious morning tea. Taking note of what we had learned at yoga earlier in the week about balance, there were healthy treats, but balanced by not so healthy sausage rolls!
Supreme Court: the finale to the Xu saga
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As a final update, the Supreme Court gave their decision in the Xu saga, with the majority of the Supreme Court dismissing Mr Xu’s appeal. This decision confirms that the entitlement under an insurance policy to replacement benefits, conditional upon reinstatement by the insured, are personal to the original insured and cannot be assigned.
Read MoreSeizure of a director's personal information by a liquidator
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In the first successful privacy case since 2012, the High Court has released its decision in the now long-standing battle between David Henderson, former director of Property Ventures Ltd (PVL), and PVL’s appointed liquidator, Robert Walker.
Read MoreJust following orders?
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A, B and C v D and E Limited [2019] NZHC 992
Could a lawyer be liable to disappointed children for a client’s decision to transfer assets to a trust?
One of the fundamental duties of a solicitor is to implement the instructions given to him or her by a client. But what if those instructions are morally dubious? Where a third party suffers a loss, can the lawyer say that he or she was only following instructions? The answer is a clear ‘no’ if the client’s instruction relates to a breach of the client’s fiduciary duties. A recent case suggests that such breaches might be more common than previously thought.
Read MoreDown to the nuts and bolts
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J & NA Shanks Ltd v Heli Support New Zealand Ltd [2019] NZHC 1615
Oscar Wilde once wrote, “life imitates art far more than art imitates life”.
It seems that this applies to litigation as well. Pauline Davies and Sam Learmonth recently acted for the plaintiff in a five-day High Court trial, seeking recovery of a payment made by insurers to a helicopter owner after the helicopter was damaged in a crash. The defendant was a maintenance engineer and it was alleged that the crash was caused by negligent workmanship. After the trial, Pauline and Sam were surprised to find that the issue in dispute had already been discussed in some detail in John Grisham’s novel, Gray Mountain.
Read MoreGet to know Hannah
/In her last two years of school Hannah was set on studying chemical or civil engineering at university but instead she chose law and French and graduated from Auckland University with an LLB and BA.
She gained fluency in French not just through study here but in immersion in France. First came an exchange trip through school and then, in her final year of her degrees, an exchange semester at Université Jean Moulin in Lyon where she combined both disciplines by taking law papers taught in French. She studied translation at university and has carried out some translation of legal work.
Hannah started out her legal career at a litigation firm in Auckland, primarily acting for homeowners in disputes arising from the Canterbury earthquakes. She was admitted in March 2019 and started at Fee Langstone in August 2019.
"Insurance law attracts me because it is unique as while it is a specialised area of practice, it applies to a wide variety of disputes, with insureds ranging from individuals to multinational companies. The different areas of expertise in so many fields fascinate me."
"In my experience so far, like others, I think what really sets Fee Langstone apart is the people. I’m lucky to be joining a firm where everyone is highly skilled at what they do but equally very welcoming and down to earth."
When asked to list three things still left on her bucket list she replied: "Go skydiving, visit Antarctica, and learn more languages. I want to learn the language of every new place I visit as soon as I get there."
You never know. Perhaps Fee Langstone will get an instruction requiring someone to jump from a Hercules aircraft into the Argentinian base.
Hannah joined Fee Langstone around the same time as here. Read more about her here
High Court illuminates rights and remedies for breach of good faith duty
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Taylor v Asteron Life Ltd [2018] NZHC 2939
The decision of Taylor v Asteron Life Ltd is important because it upholds an insurer’s right to cancel and seek damages from an insured guilty of making a fraudulent claim. Rather than applying common law principles of the duty of good faith, the insurer’s remedies were dealt with under the Contracts and Commercial Law Act 2017 (CCL Act).
Read MoreNotification of Insurance claims – the scope of notification required
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Euro Pools Plc v Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Plc [2019] EWCA Civ 808
The Court of Appeal in England and Wales has recently considered the question of what (and how much) information must be provided to validly notify an insurer of a potential claim.
Read MoreThe Brown Marmorated Stink Bug: Watch This Space
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The brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys) is a native of China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan and is a serious agricultural pest in all places where it has become established, including the USA and parts of Europe and Canada. The prospect of the stink bug becoming established in New Zealand is regarded by the local horticulture industry as a matter of serious concern, with an NZIER report published in February 2018 estimating that this could wipe up to $3.6bn from New Zealand’s GDP by 2038.
Read MoreMainzeal: quantum assessment moves in a new direction
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Mainzeal Property and Constructions Ltd (in Liq) v Yan and Others [2019] NZHC 255
In February of this year, the High Court upheld claims of reckless trading against the former directors of Mainzeal Property and Construction Limited (Mainzeal). The Court held the former directors had to pay $36 million, approximately one third of the $110 million owed to unsecured creditors. The decision is important for a number of reasons, including an adoption of a novel approach to assessing the quantum of the award against the directors.
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