by frog
Those wanting to know what the group tasked with reviewing the Overseas Investment Act will be recommending can put the tarot cards away and forget reading the entrails of that specially purchased organic chicken. Forsooth I Frog, am a sayer of sooth and a foreteller of future fortune. I can also google.
You see those tasked with working with officials to review the overseas investment review are all corporate lawyers cherry picked by officials from the Overseas Investment Office in consultation with former Minister of Land Information – Dr Richard Worth.
These lawyers were picked due to their ‘expertise, knowledge and regular involvement with the Overseas Investment Act’ according to Finance Minister Bill English.
Ie the experts assigned to review the process all work for large law firms (Minter Ellison Rudd Watts, Bell Gully, Simpson Grierson, Russell McVeagh and Chapman Tripp to be exact) who represent overseas clients and are now feeding their ‘expertise’ back into the process.
And what do the firms the expert panel work for think about the current situation – well they have pretty firm views and have put those views into writing before and during the review process.
According to Chapmann Tripp we need a more liberal investment regime with lower compliance costs – certainly no need to beef up protection around iconic sites though.
“The Overseas Investment Act 2005 (the Act) was intended to provide greater protection to “iconic” sites while ensuring a liberal foreign investment regime and reducing compliance costs where feasible. Currently, however, technicalities in the Act are preventing it from achieving the second and third of these objectives.”
Simpson Grierson also have a crack – setting out a series of problems and their solutions. This analysis was written after the announcement of the review by Bill English on the 17 March this year. Down the bottom Simpson Grierson point out they will be making submissions as part of the Government review.
Luckily for Simpson Grierson these submissions will certainly get heard as one of their partners Don Holborow is on the expert panel and was thanked in a letter by Former Minister Worth for taking part five days before Bill English publicly announced the review.
Of course not everything has gone to plan for the corporate interests involved in the review of the overseas investment act. Richard Worth’s departing the scene will no doubt have slowed the pace a little – something making Bell Gully a little grumpy.
But then you can’t have your overseas Investment cake with lashings of deregulatory red tape cutting cream and eat it – or can you!?
Look out for the red tape slashing, simplified Overseas investment later this week brought to you by Minter Ellison Rudd Watts, Bell Gully, Simpson Grierson, Russell McVeagh and Chapman Tripp.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Tue, July 21st, 2009
Tags: Bill English, corporate interests, Overseas Investment, richard worth
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
that’s a tidy bit of journalism there…frog..
..i’ll link to/feature it tomorrow morn..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Great, we need a lot more investment.
The last pack of clowns in charge left us with ten years of deficits.
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–The last pack of clowns in charge left us with ten years of deficits.–
Ah, so the new clowns are reducing the deficit then?
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# BluePeter Says:
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:13 am
“The last pack of clowns in charge left us with ten years of deficits.”
Labour left the possibility of ten years of deficits by proposing massive spending on road building, prison building and subsidising retirement savings. National could reverse those decisions any time they want to, but they have chosen not to.
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“The last pack of clowns in charge left us with ten years of deficits.”
So the answer is to let overseas investors come along and buy everything and repatriate the profits. That’ll do wonders for our balance of payments.
As I understand the investment, the whole point is to ultimately get out more than you put in. The way the business press talks you’d think investors were fairy godmothers.
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