Sarah Keene is one of the few practitioners in New Zealand who specialise in providing competition, consumer and regulatory law advice across the corporate and litigation spectrum. She advises clients in relation to Commerce Commission investigations, prosecutions and appeals; the legality of behavioural arrangements and conduct; clearances and authorisations of mergers and acquisitions; and generally in relation to competition law advice, appeals and judicial reviews.
Sarah heads Russell McVeagh's highly successful competition law team, which has earned the highest New Zealand ranking from the Global Competition Review, a guide to the world's leading competition law specialists.
Both in 2016 and 2014, Sarah was rated New Zealand's competition lawyer of the year by the International Law Office Client Choice Awards. She is also individually recommended as a Band 1 Competition lawyer by Chambers and Partners Asia Pacific 2017 and was featured in the Global Competition Review's '100 Women in Antitrust' in March 2017.
Sarah contributes to the American Bar Association's Year in Review Publication and the Global Competition Review Cartel Enforcement publications jointly with the Auckland Crown warrant holder Meredith Connell. She regularly speaks at competition law conferences in New Zealand and in Australia.
During the past year, Sarah has led her team on a large number of market-leading deals and litigation. This includes assisting Fairfax and NZME in relation to their proposed merger authorisation and appeal; acting for Spark on the proposed merger of Sky TV and Vodafone New Zealand in relation to the Commission's clearance process; advising Suncorp regarding the proposed acquisition of Tower Limited and appeal process; acting as antitrust advisers to Spark on its attempted takeover of TeamTalk, a communications service and infrastructure company; and acting for Cristal in obtaining New Zealand competition clearances for the sale of its titanium dioxide business to Tronox.
