Outstanding scholars honoured

Two outstanding legal scholars from Auckland Law School have been honoured with inaugural research awards by the faculty.

Professor Peter Watts received the Faculty of Law Research Excellence Award, and Senior Lecturer Hanna Wilberg, the Faculty of Law Sub-Professorial Research Award.

Professor Watts is a leading Commonwealth scholar in the law of agency and the related fields of company law and restitution.

Over the past five years he has published two substantial new editions of books and numerous articles in the best Commonwealth journals for private law doctrinal scholarship.

His work has been relied on by academics and courts around the Commonwealth including the UK Supreme Court. He is currently a Leverhulme Visiting Professor to the United Kingdom, hosted by Oxford University.

Professor Watts went on to win a prestigious 2016 University of Auckland Research Excellence Award.

His recent books include a collection of essays resulting from a conference held in the Netherlands. The book, Agency Law in Commercial Practice (OUP) was co-edited with Danny Busch (Nijmegen) and Laura Macgregor (Edinburgh), for which there was also a book launch symposium in Oxford in February. He has also completed a new edition of Company Law in New Zealand (2^nd ed, LexisNexis) with Neil Campbell and Christopher Hare.

Senior Lecturer Hanna Wilberg’s research written for both international and New Zealand audiences, spans two very difficult fields – administrative law and public authority liability.

Her contribution to creating research networks and improving the research environment in the field of New Zealand and Commonwealth administrative law were particularly noted.

Last year she organised a conference and workshop on New Zealand Administrative Law, featuring papers by administrative law specialists from most New Zealand universities, resulting in a special issue of the New Zealand Law Review that has just been published.

Also released by Hart Publishing last year was a collection of essays by contributors from all major common law jurisdictions on The Scope and Intensity of Substantive Review: Traversing Taggart’s Rainbow which Hanna edited in collaboration with Professor Mark Elliott of Cambridge University.

The Faculty of Law congratulates them both on their success.