Mark Berry Barrister  Qualifications LLB, PG Dip Law, University of Otago LLM, Monash University LLM, JSD, Columbia University Admitted 1980 New Zealand; 1984 Victoria; 1985 New South Wales Contact Details Direct Phone: +64 4 914 1052 Fax: +64 4 473 3179 Email: m.berry@barristerscomm.com

Mark Berry

Mark Berry was appointed the Chair of the Commerce Commission from 1 April 2009.  He is therefore not currently able to accept instructions.

Mark specialises in competition law and economic regulation. He has acted in many of the leading merger and restrictive trade practices cases since the enactment of the Commerce Act in 1986 including, for example, the Goodman Fielder/Wattie merger, the acquisition by the BIL/Qantas/JAL/American Airlines consortium of their initial stake in Air New Zealand, and the acquisition by Fletcher Forests of certain of the Crown’s forestry interests in the Central North Island. Mark has also served a term as Deputy Chairman of the Commerce Commission and his decisions while on the Commission included the authorisation of the telecommunications number portability deed, the draft determination relating to the Fonterra dairy merger, the acquisition by Shell of Fletcher Energy, and the acquisition by Caltex of Challenge, to name a few.

Mark's recent competition law work has been over a range of sectors, including gas, electricity, dairy and health care. His recent regulatory work has been primarily in the electricity sector.

Mark is a former partner of the firm Bell Gully, and more recently he has been a consultant at Chapman Tripp. He was Deputy Chairman of the Commerce Commission from 1999-2001.

Mark has also held a number of academic positions. He is a former member of the Otago Law School faculty, where he taught Contract Law, Competition Law and Securities Regulation. Currently he is a Research Principal at the NZ Institute for the Study of Competition & Regulation at Victoria University. He is also a member of the International Advisory Board at the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

Mark completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Otago, and he also holds a doctorate from Columbia University, New York. He has published widely in the field of competition law. He is co-author of the leading New Zealand text in the field, Gault on Commercial Law, and his recent work on monopolisation has been published by the Georgetown University Law Center. 

Publications & Cases