Legal academic and author Dr Lindsay Hampton died in Christchurch on 31 July 2013 after a short illness.

Dr Hampton was born on 7 March 1942 in Christchurch.

He held BA, LLB and LLM degrees from the University of Canterbury and LLM and SJD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He was foundation director of the Competition Law and Policy Institute of New Zealand in 1989 and a senior lecturer in commercial law at the University of Canterbury until his retirement in 2007.

In his academic career Dr Hampton specialised in competition law and related areas, and for many years supervised law honours and postgraduate students for the law school.

He was a prominent legal writer on competition law. For many years he was a contributing author to Butterworths Commercial Law, Laws of New Zealand and principal author of the 2013 LexisNexis publication Guide to Competition Law.

Dr Hampton was also an original author for the Thomson Reuter publications Gault on Commercial Law and Brookers Insolvency Law and Practice.

Publisher Rachel Travers said LexisNexis NZ was saddened to hear of his passing.

“He was a committed and valued author over several decades for Commercial Law in New Zealand, Laws of New Zealand, and Guide to Competition Law.

“We will miss his expertise and good humour,” she says.

Yvonne Van Roy, Victoria University Associate Professor School of Accounting and Commercial Law, says Dr Hampton was “a very clever and thorough scholar” who she had always held in very high regard.

“I am sure that he had an international reputation to go with this. More importantly, he was a person a great integrity and generosity,” she says.

Dr Adrian Sawyer of Canterbury University had known Dr Hampton since the late 1980s, when he taught the Competition Law and Policy class with John Walsh.

“I was particularly interested by the implications of the Commerce Act and came to appreciate Lindsay’s immense knowledge of this area of law,” he says.

When Dr Sawyer joined the Department of Accountancy in the early 1990s, Dr Hampton became a mentor to him by assisting with research writing, and encouraged him to undertake a Doctor of Juridical Science degree in the United States.

“Lindsay had undertaken one himself and so was able to share his insights and be one of my referees to assist me with gaining entry to the University of Virginia’s School of Law.

“As a colleague, Lindsay was quietly spoken, deliberate and measured in his comments, and it would not be until after careful reflection that he would offer his views on a topic in a meeting.

“In that regard he was one of the ‘wise heads” of the Department of Accounting, Finance and Information Systems (as it then was). Lindsay was one to encourage us to be sufficiently generous in our marking to ensure the top students did well so that they had the best of opportunities to secure scholarships and awards. Lindsay was from the old school, being both a gentleman and a scholar,” Dr Sawyer says.

Dr Hampton is survived by his partner Birthe.