Latest Legal Commentaries
Friday, January 30, 2026
The Hon. Robert Smellie CNZM KC
The Hon. Robert Smellie CNZM KC passed away on 23 December 2025. Tributes have
been paid to him by the Chief Justice and by Business Desk (Thomas Manch, 24 December
2025). Both outline his distinguished career as a practicing lawyer, first as partner at
Grierson Jackson and later as a Queen’s Counsel at the Independent Bar. They then
traverse his Judicial career, initially as Chair of the Equal Opportunities Tribunal, then from
1985 as a High Court Judge followed after his retirement from that Bench as a member of
the Fiji Court of Appeal. In 2007 after a military coup More...
Friday, December 05, 2025
The Problem of the Supermarkets
The current problem of the supermarket duopoly can be traced back to a Privy Council decision over 20 years ago ([2004] 1 NZLR 145) which cleared the way for Progressive Enterprises Limited (which operated the Countdown supermarkets) to acquire Woolworths (a competitor) over the protests of Foodstuffs, a second competitor which operated the New World, Pak ‘n Save and Four Square chains of stores. The effect was to reduce the number of competitors from three (normally considered sufficient to guarantee effective competition in a market) to two (normally recognised as giving rise to a state of a cosy duopoly). Progressive had More...