Minister of Commerce Paul Swain has announced a new appointment to the Commerce Commission.

Denese Bates QC of Auckland has been appointed as a member of the Commerce Commission for a period of three years.

Ms Bates has been practising as a barrister since 1981 and was appointed as a Queens Counsel in 1996. Her practice has encompassed a wide range of litigation before Courts and Tribunals and she has been counsel in a number of landmark cases.

She has recently ended a long involvement as a counsel member of both the Auckland District Law Society and the New Zealand Law Society. Over the past two years she has been convenor of the New Zealand Law Society’s Ethics Committee.

Since 1984 Ms Bates has been actively engaged in the management of a manufacturing business AJ Bates Ltd.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>