Peter specialises in general corporate and commercial law advice including corporate transactions, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, commercial contracting and procurement and probity advice for large scale and/or complex procurement projects and Crown asset disposal projects.

In 2008 and 2010 he assisted the New Zealand Treasury implement the Crown Retail Guarantee Scheme and its renewal.

He acted as an independent expert adviser to Treasury in relation to the extension of the Mixed Ownership Model (MOM) in respect of several State Owned Enterprises. In addition to this role he was also the probity adviser to the MOM programme. In that capacity he provided probity advice and assurance in respect of a number of service provider request for proposal processes in relation to the extension of the MOM programme.  He also provided probity advice and assurance in relation to the offer of shares in Mighty River Power, Meridian Energy and Genesis Energy including the institutional bookbuilds and the broker firm bidding processes conducted for two of the offers. He also acted as probity adviser to the bookbuild for the block trade of Air New Zealand shares sold by the Crown as part of the MOM programme.

He was appointed the probity and independent transactions adviser by The Treasury providing transaction and probity advice in relation to the Social Housing Reform Programme. He was also the probity adviser to a consortium of 9 (of the 12) regional councils in relation the procurement process conducted for the provision an interim bus ticketing system.

He provides specialist probity advice to the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment in respect of procurement activities.

He acted as the probity adviser to Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Authority in respect of the financial and business case adviser appointments as well as other substantial projects undertaken by The Treasury.

He assisted the Ministry of Economic Development in relation to the Pike River Royal Commission of Inquiry and acted for the Crown in relation to the funding agreement in respect of the recovery of the Pike River mine drift.

He advised the Crown as an independent transaction advisor in relation to its contract with SkyCity Entertainment to build the New Zealand International Convention Centre which role included the provision of advice  in relation to the provisions of the required legislation and the drafting of provisions. He advised the Crown in relation to the interim arrangements with Rocket Lab which enabled the construction of rocket launch facilities in New Zealand and rocket launches in advance of the adoption of a regulatory regime.

In 2019 he acted as probity advisor to the Department of Internal Affairs in relation to the procurement of electronic monitoring services. He continues to provide probity advice in relation to such services.

More recently he acted as probity advisor to the appointment of default KiwiSaver providers, and has provided probity advice on a number of Public Transport procurement processes conducted by regional authorities. He is currently providing probity advice to Land Information New Zealand in relation to a satellite based augmentation system procurement.

Peter’s merger and acquisition experience includes transactions involving registered banks (including ANZ on the acquisition of National Bank), finance companies, generation and transmission assets and entities, telecommunications, technology, and manufacturing assets.

He has extensive experience in the electricity sector having acted for 20 of the then 48 power boards on their corporatisation, the merger of Capital Power and Energy Direct, as well as the establishment of Meridian Energy. He advises a number of electricity distribution companies on all aspects of their business including joint venture arrangements and ownership issues, general contractual arrangements, metering services, transmission and back up supply arrangements, electricity services agreements and gas and electricity purchase agreements, and regulatory advice. He is extensively advising on health and safety issues in this sector.

He provides advice on wind, hydro and geothermal generation projects, co-generation and distributed generation, including joint venture ownership arrangements, land access and investigation arrangements. He acted on the development of a geothermal new generation facility to supplement the previous three facilities he advised on involving drilling contracts, EPC and equipment supply contracts, fluid conveyance systems and numerous associated contractual arrangements.

He has also acted on the first successful substantive applications for exemptions from the requirements for compliance with all the arm-length rules under the Electricity Industry Act 2010 (now contained in the Electricity Industry Participation Code).

Peter is admitted in New Zealand as well as in Victoria and New South Wales, Australia.