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Stacey Shortall

Partner
Wellington
Download Stacey's vCard

DDI:        +64 4 498 5118
Mobile:   +64 21 246 3116
FAX:        +64 4 498 5001
Email:      

Stacey specialises in commercial litigation and dispute resolution, white-collar criminal and regulatory proceedings, bankruptcy and insolvency-related matters and environmental offenses.

Professional Qualifications

Admitted to practise in New Zealand and New York

LLM University of Alberta, 1996
LLB Victoria University, 1995
BCA (Accounting) Victoria University, 1994

Public International Law Certificate, Hague Academy of International Law, 2000

Areas of expertise

Commercial Litigation
White Collar
Competition and Regulatory
Antitrust
Corporate Recovery and Insolvency
Environment

Stacey is an experienced litigator who has acted for major financial institutions, corporations and individuals in complex litigation and other proceedings, including mediations.  She has expertise dealing with the challenging interplay between regulatory investigations, criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits. Stacey has handled high-stake disputes in securities class action and derivative lawsuits, antitrust litigation, bankruptcy and insolvency-related proceedings and actions alleging a broad range of common law claims, including as counsel at trial and on appeal.  Stacey has also handled cutting-edge white-collar criminal and regulatory matters involving a broad range of alleged corporate misconduct including bid rigging, accounting improprieties, money laundering and environmental offenses. Stacey can bring to any dispute a strong grasp of the underlying substantive issues and the strategic insight to result in successful outcomes.

Stacey re-joined MERW in 2010 from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in New York where she was a Counsel in that firm’s litigation department.  In its January 2006 cover story, The American Lawyer selected Paul, Weiss as the best litigation firm in the United States over the past two years and the firm was a finalist for litigation department of the year again in 2010.   Stacey was the first non-American woman to make Counsel in the litigation department at Paul Weiss.
 
Some of Stacey's major projects
  • Acting for Pike River Coal Limited (in receivership) together with certain D&Os and senior managers in responding to investigations by the NZ Police, the Department of Labour, the Chief Coroner and a Royal Commission into the November 2010 incidents at the company's coal mine, together with conducting an internal investigation into those incidents
  • Acting for certain directors of Lombard Finance and Investments Limited in criminal and civil proceedings brought by the Securities Commission concerning disclosure issues
  • Advising on regulatory inquiries and investigations of finance companies
  • Advising government departments and institutions on regulatory and other litigation-specific reform for New Zealand
  • Advising institutions on the Financial Markets (Regulators and KiwiSaver) Bill
  • Acting for Mitsubishi Motors NZ Limited in a franchise related matter
  • Acting for Greenstone Energy Limited in fuel delivery related matters
  • Acting for PricewaterhouseCoopers in several receivership matters
  • Acting for American International Group, Inc. (AIG) in investigations by the United States Justice Department (the DOJ), the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC), the Office of the New York Attorney General (the NYAG) and other regulatory authorities concerning finite insurance, bid rigging and accounting restatement issues.  Also acting in securities class action and derivative litigation arising out of such issues (in which plaintiffs’ estimates of possible damages ranged in the billions of US dollars)
  • Acting for Lehman Brothers in investigations by the NYAG and the SEC into mutual fund trading practices.  Also acting in securities class action and derivative litigation arising out of such practices
  • Acting for Morgan Stanley in securities class action and derivative litigation arising from Federal and State investigations into research analyst practices
  • Acting for Exxon Mobil in civil litigation brought by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection concerning alleged environmental misconduct at former refinery sites
  • Acting for Carnival Corporation against its prosecution for alleged environmental offences
  • Acting for Time Warner, Inc. in consolidated antitrust class actions arising out of Time Warner’s sale of internet access services
  • Acting for Navigator Gas Transport’s Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in complex cross-border proceedings including before the Privy Council
  • Acting for Onex Corporation against fraudulent conveyance, preference and common law claims (in which plaintiff’s estimates of possible damages exceeded one billion US dollars)
  • Acting for Dynegy Inc. in Enron-related litigation.
  • Advising Maori claimant groups in relation to Treaty claims including appearing before the Waitangi Tribunal. 

Seminars and publications

"Getting it right upfront", NZ Lawyer, Issue 145, 17 September 2010
"Carrots work better than a stick", National Business Review, 27 August 2010
"Better, not battered directors", National Business Review, 21 May 2010
“Breaking the Bond of Motherhood”, NZ Lawyer, Issue 61, 30 March 2007
“Aboriginal Self-Government: Unravelling the Myth”, University of Saskatchewan, 1996
 
Work history
 
Partner, Minter Ellison Rudd Watts, Wellington (2010 - current)
Counsel, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, New York (1999 to 2010) formerly Associate to 2006
Solicitor, Rudd Watts & Stone (now Minter Ellison Rudd Watts), Wellington (1996 to 1999)




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