Nathaniel Walker

Nathaniel's practice spans all aspects of commercial litigation and dispute resolution. 
 
Drawing on his local and international experience, he advises on complex private and public law issues, with particular focus on equity and trusts, corporate and commercial claims, insurance disputes and statutory interpretation. Nathaniel also has notable expertise in cross-border dispute resolution. 
 
Nathaniel rejoined Russell McVeagh in 2017, having spent more than two years in New York practising at Cravath, Swaine and Moore LLP and completing his Master of Laws at Columbia. 

Nathaniel provides strategic advice to meet client needs. His recent experience includes:

• Acting for the Earthquake Commission, New Zealand's statutory disaster insurer, in a significant number of proceedings (resolved and ongoing) with customers and other parties, including He v EQC [2019] NZCA 373.  
• Acting for a trustee corporation in an application to transfer more than 2,000 trust and estate appointments (Re NZGT [2019] NZHC 2548). 
• Acting for an energy sector participant in an ongoing contentious contractual dispute. 
• Acting for a multinational primary industry participant in significant commercial litigation with a joint venture partner.   
• Acting for a director in an ongoing "double derivative" claim brought by trust beneficiaries. 
• Acting on the New Zealand law aspects of beneficiaries' claims in Florida state court relating to alleged misappropriated trust funds. 
• Acting for Credit Suisse in an international trust dispute to protest the jurisdiction of the New Zealand courts (Ivanishvili v Credit Suisse [2018] NZHC 1755).
• Acting for a private individual in successful litigation to overturn a decision by the Registrar of Companies to prohibit him from acting as a director (Brand v Registrar of Companies [2018] NZHC 3148).
• Acting for the late Jean and Allan Hubbard (and the executors of their respective estates) in relation to issues arising from the imposition of statutory management and related litigation concerning the alleged sales of various ownership interests. 
• Acting for Kiwibank on class action litigation brought against it by Fair Play on Fees. 
• Acting for institutional clients in investigations by New Zealand and New York regulators on a range of matters, including anti-money laundering compliance, disclosure and conduct issues.
• Acting for Lecretia Seales in her application testing the legality of aid in dying services.
   

LLB (Hons, First Class), BA, University of Otago.
 
LLM (James Kent Scholar), Columbia University.
 
STEP Advanced Certificate in Trust Disputes.

Nathaniel was admitted to practise in New Zealand in 2011 and New York in 2017. He is an affiliate member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. Nathaniel is author of the 2019 New Zealand chapter of Enforcement of Money Judgements and co-author of the New Zealand chapter of The Securities Litigation Review (Editions 4, 5 and 6).

Recent journal publications include "New Zealand developments in equitable tracing and subrogation: overuse and underuse" in (2018) 24 Trusts & Trustees 879 and "Without prejudice privilege when seeking the court's blessing" in (2019) 25 Trusts & Trustees 539.

In 2020 he was named a Rising Star by NZ Lawyer magazine, and is listed as a recommended lawyer in Dispute Resolution by the Legal 500. Nathaniel is one of only two people recognised as "Up and Coming" in the Chambers and Partners High Net Worth Guide 2021 for Private Wealth Law in New Zealand.