Professor Francis Dawson

Biography

Francis Dawson recently returned to teaching after a lengthy spell in practice. He specialises in Contract. His special interest is int he workings of New Zealand's contract statutes and remedies for breach of contract. He is also interested in Equity Jurisprudence and in the history of contracts. He is a contributing editor to Benjamin on Sale, and is the New Zealand Secretary to the Selden Society.

He also has extensive practical experience in corporate and securities law. Major assignments which he undertook as a practitioner included the first demutualisation of a building society, its conversion into a registered bank and its listing on the stock exchange; the corporatisation of a regional electricity network and its initial public offering of securities; the acquisition of a trading bank and the subsequent merger of the target entity with the acquirer; debt offerings of medium term notes on the Luxembourg and London Stock Exchanges; a demerger of an insurer and its trustee services arm; the commutation of an insurer’s liabilities under certain policies of insurance; the acquisition for an offshore investor of a majority stake in a dairy processing company; a merger between a building society and a registered bank; and most recently, advice tp the Institute of Chartered Accountants (a statutory corporation) on its proposed merger with its Australian counterpart.

Teaching | Current

Areas of expertise