Every year, London based research directory Who’s Who Legal publishes a Regulatory Investigations Guide, with support from the Global Investigations Review magazine. In 2019 Gary has again been ranked as leading NZ lawyer, covering his core fields of white-collar crime, corporate compliance and regulatory enforcement/investigations.
The independent research identifies leading lawyers in 68 jurisdictions. Interestingly, US firms Debevoise & Plimpton and Skadden Arps top the rankings table for cross-border or global investigations, but in our Asia-Pacific region Clifford Chance leads the way, along with another US law firm (Davis Polk).
As a top regulatory barrister, Gary frequently works on instruction from overseas lawyers, when they need help with the New Zealand local arm of a sprawling investigation or threatened prosecution.
Gary comments that: “the 2019 Guide’s editorial piece discussed the appointment of US Attorney-General William Barr, recently in the news by taking no action after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report. It quoted Mr Barr on the importance of prosecutorial discretion, and the breadth of judgment necessary, where he said:
The prosecutorial power is an awesome power, and is subject to abuse… once the criminal weapon is wielded against the company, as a practical matter the company is defenceless. It’s like – I mean I’ve been on both sides – it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. And the prosecutors know it’.”
Gary says these are “thought-provoking comments – especially from someone who served as a DoJ prosecutor, also A-G back in President GW Bush’s regime, and General Counsel at huge telco company Verizon. New Zealand is currently experiencing a rush to criminalise all sorts of commercial regulatory matters, and perhaps for good reasons. But these developments will place a real premium in future on having sound, experienced application of the flexible prosecutorial discretion concept.”
Online parts of the Who’s Who Investigations Guide are available here:
https://whoswholegal.com/news/analysis/article/35045/investigations-2019/
Clients or corporate counsel who may want to obtain a free hard copy from the publisher should contact Gary by email or through the website.
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