BIOGRAPHY

Mingze has experience acting in complex disputes across a range of areas, including intellectual property, company law, and property-related matters.

Representative matters include:

• acting for the first to fourth defendants in a nine-week High Court trial involving claims of approximately $128 million and a counterclaim of approximately $40 million, which included significant issues under the CCCFA;

• acting for the plaintiff in interim injunction proceedings and the substantive proceeding against Uber Technologies, Inc, One New Zealand Group Limited and Uber New Zealand Technologies Limited (with Clive Elliott KC);

• acting for the plaintiffs in a joint venture dispute involving more than 40 properties and disputes exceeding $20 million;

• acting for the plaintiffs in trade mark disputes in New Zealand and Australia, including appearances before a delegate of the Australian Registrar of Trade Marks at IP Australia (with Clive Elliott KC);

• advising entities in relation to proceedings involving the Commissioner of Taxation under Part IVC of the Taxation Administration Act 1953 (Cth), involving disputes exceeding AUD $20 million; and

• assisting in Court of Appeal proceedings concerning patent issues involving artificial intelligence.

Mingze completed his LLB(Hons)/BSc at the University of Auckland, where he received several scholarships and academic recognitions, including first in course and first in multiple examinations, including in Financial Markets Law.

He served as an adjunct lecturer in the Commercial Law Department at the University of Auckland. He was also the Senior Lead Tutor for both the Law of Torts and Equity at the Auckland Law School, and has tutored in Public Law, Criminal Law, Law of Contract, and Commercial Law. He regularly serves as a moot court judge at the Auckland Law School and was the Editor-in-Chief of the Public Interest Law Journal of New Zealand (Issue 10, 2023) and an editor of the Auckland University Law Review, in which his honours dissertation was published (Volume 27(1), 2021).

Before joining FortyEight Shortland, Mingze was a junior barrister at Shortland Chambers, a litigation solicitor at a specialist boutique firm, a Judges’ Clerk, and an associate Trade Mark examiner at IPONZ. He also has over a decade of senior management experience prior to his legal career.

Mingze is fluent in Mandarin. He is also available to accept direct instructions in appropriate matters.

Mingze is actively involved in professional development and legal education, regularly speaking, moderating, and presenting seminars and CPD programmes.