DLA Piper Appoints Two Special Counsel

DLA Piper Appoints Two Special Counsel

DLA Piper has appointed Special Counsel David Johnston in Tax and Ran Robinson in Finance, Projects and Restructuring.

“As experienced practitioners in their fields, David and Ran fit our strategy to attract quality talent to further strengthen our expertise and enhance our high-performance culture,” says Martin Wiseman, Country Managing Partner of DLA Piper in New Zealand. “Their appointments complement DLA Piper’s vast international pool of capability in both areas of law.”

David Johnston is an accomplished international tax law practitioner with almost a decade of experience in London, including three years as European Head of Tax for Oaktree, one of the world’s top ten private equity firms. His expertise includes multinational and cross-border taxation, corporate tax, disputes with fiscal authorities and IR audits.

Returning to New Zealand, he spent nearly three years as Fonterra’s Regional Tax & Customs Manager for Asia, Middle East & Africa. David also worked in the M&A transactions team at Ernst & Young in London and Deloitte in New Zealand.

“All governments have sharpened their focus on the tax treatment of multinational cross-border investment recently,” he says. “My main focus is this area, including the recent tax and customs law changes. Because my experience is of tax in multiple jurisdictions, and because DLA Piper is a global law firm, it’s an area in which we have an edge.”

Ran Robinson is a senior banking and finance lawyer with nearly 19 years’ international experience in London, Singapore and New Zealand. Ran has strong experience with all aspects of banking law and regulation, is a specialist in corporate and asset financing and has advised on local and multi-jurisdictional transactions.
Ran will be combining her substantial transactional and regulatory experience (both in private practice and in-house) with the client-centric approach of DLA Piper New Zealand’s Finance, Projects and Restructuring team. Ran says that, "There are myriad changes and challenges facing the banking and finance sector, both from a digital and technology perspective as well as a number of potentially far-reaching legislative reforms in the pipeline".

"The firm continues to build seamless international capability in legal disciplines such as tax, and banking and finance. This means that our global clients have immediate, high quality expertise in a wide number of jurisdictions at their fingertips." says Wiseman.

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