The corporate and commercial law expert might have been “seduced” by LA Law's first series
In April, corporate and commercial law expert Nick Scott made the jump from Dentons Kensington Swan’s partnership to a special counsel role with Lowndes Jordan. The senior lawyer has worked with the likes of Fusion Specialty Insurance Pty Limited, Sealegs International Limited, Sedgwick New Zealand and Oyster Bay Marlborough Vineyards Limited – however, his recent work with Libelle Group Limited to help keep children fed is the transaction that has stayed with him.
In the first part of this interview conducted shortly after Scott joined Lowndes Jordan, the special counsel shares his initial path leading to a tax inspector career and tells us of the one day he would live differently if he could.
What made you choose a career in law, and what's your favourite part of the job?
An aversion to the alternative – I was going to be a tax inspector for the IRD. I entered university with a bursary from the IRD to do a B.Com majoring in accounting. After two years I realised I didn’t want to be an accountant. Fortunately, I had done Legal Systems in my first year, so I added a LLB to my B.Com. I may possibly have been seduced by the first series of LA Law in 1986.
While I enjoy the variety of work I’m involved in and the variety of businesses I work with, what really gets me going is the pride I feel when working with a client as a team to solve complex problems and achieve better outcomes than my client would have achieved on their own.
What in your opinion has been the most memorable event of your career to date?
The high-stakes, complexity of the fiercely contested takeover of Oyster Bay Marlborough Vineyards Limited in 2005, with competing partial takeover offers from Peter Yealands Investments Limited and Delegat’s Wine Estate Limited. I acted for the target, Oyster Bay, and assisted it with responding to the takeover offers and various complaints to the Takeovers Panel, NZX and the Securities Commission.
Oyster Bay had no employees, so board chair Bill Falconer and I had to deal with everything. The application of the Takeovers Code was still fairly recent and this takeover gave rise to the first High Court judgments regarding the Takeovers Act. There I had the pleasure of working closely with the late Robert Fardell QC and appearing in the High Court three times (once as senior counsel), in front of NZX Discipline and the Takeovers Panel in section 32 meetings.
What in your opinion was the most important thing you got involved in over the past year?
Helping keep New Zealand’s children fed! Libelle Group Limited was part of the Healthy School Lunches Programme and went into liquidation in March 2025. I acted for the liquidators (together with James McMillan at Dentons) in assisting them sell the business and assets to Compass Group. It was a highly visible and politically sensitive transaction that had to be dealt with under extreme time pressure. We literally worked through the night to get the deal done (and the children fed).
If you could relive one day in your life, which day would it be and why?
I have often put my client’s interests ahead of my family’s interests. I wasn’t able to take my first child home from National Women’s because two weeks earlier I had pre-booked a series of meetings with a client who had travelled to Auckland for them. We met with a potential receiver, a potential liquidator and, finally, the client’s administrator (appointed under a scheme of arrangement). I’d like to think that I’d do it differently if I ever had the chance again.
