Our expertise covers a wide range of practice areas and our work spans international borders.
Our specialist, international banking practice is founded on strong relationships with the world’s biggest financial institutions and our deep sector knowledge and experience. We act for the majority of the major banks, insurers, finance providers and participants in the international banking industry, as well as for corporate and sovereign borrowers. We have banking and finance specialists across our offices in Europe, the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Australia, Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia whose expertise ranges from asset finance and leasing to derivatives, capital markets and real estate.
We have one of Australia’s most respected competition and regulatory teams. A mix of commercially minded advisors, former ACCC investigators and prosecutors, as well as born and bred defence lawyers, our team works on some of the country’s highest-profile matters in the fields of competition, consumer protection and trade practices compliance. These range from international cartel prosecutions to merger clearances for household-name companies.
Many of Asia Pacific’s leading companies choose our construction and engineering team for its transactional experts, highly specialist disputes practice and outstanding track record. Our depth of experience comes from working on many of the region's most significant and complex construction projects.
We are the only firm with a deep understanding of our clients' technology. From power generation to hydro carbon extraction, technology is the cornerstone of their business. We have domestic and international arbitration capability across all sectors which rely on technical engineering disciplines, including oil and gas, power generation and mining.
Our people are exceptional. They continually come face-to-face with the legal issues that confront contractors, developers, consultants, and government, and know-how to resolve them, whether they are on or offshore.
Our transactional expertise includes procurement strategy, project structuring, negotiation and preparation of contracts. Our post-contract skill set includes the provision of dispute avoidance and commercial optimisation advice along with the full range of negotiation, claims, and dispute capabilities. Our ability to provide an end-to-end service across the lifespan of any construction project is unique in the market.
The vitality of the Australian economy depends on a large number and variety of corporate transactions. Each of these transactions is different; the way we assist our clients is not. Regardless of the size and complexity of the deal, we provide first rate corporate, regulatory and compliance expertise. Whether handling mergers or acquisitions, capital raisings or private equity transactions, our experienced partners and lawyers combine technical skill with a practical, commercial approach.
Our services range from resolving industrial disputes, providing employment law advice and negotiating collective agreements, through to defending unfair dismissal, discrimination and sexual harassment claims and drafting individual contracts. These services are delivered by a highly specialised and experienced team with an excellent record of successfully representing employers in courts and industrial tribunals. We combine detailed local knowledge with a national perspective that enables clients to benefit from a unified national approach to their employment strategies and activities.
We are one of Australia’s leading power, energy and infrastructure firms. Our lawyers have extensive experience in advising on the acquisition, development and financing of power projects and helping the power sector to understand, adapt to and make the most of opportunities in an increasingly competitive regulatory environment. As Australia’s vast natural resources sector is further opened up by globalisation, we handle large, multi-party and multi-jurisdictional projects involving major issues relating to the environment and heritage, infrastructure, land use, native title, project financing, tax and risk management.
Environment and planning law is becoming inextricably linked and clients need professionals versed in both disciplines. We are one of only a handful of legal practices in Australia to cover both. With a comprehensive range of advisory services covering everything from the effect of planning controls to managing environmental incidents and investigations, we’ve worked on the full range of development projects. These include residential, tourism and recreation, retail, aged care, commercial and industrial projects and major infrastructure projects such as roads, water, energy and telecommunications.
We provide sophisticated legal services to this dynamic sector – helping clients manage the effects of a complex regulatory environment, providing focused investment support to local and offshore investment funds and assisting in the development of innovative financial products. Our financial and investment services group has in-depth experience of advising trustees, managers and general partners across asset classes and sectors, including equities, real estate investment trusts and development trusts, private equity and venture capital vehicles, hedge funds and derivative transactions, infrastructure funds, fixed income, LICs, mortgages and cash.
Our pharmaceutical and biotechnology group is an active participant in the pharmaceutical industry with a client portfolio that includes many local and international companies. With deep industry knowledge, particularly relating to regulation, our expert lawyers provide clients with advice on all aspects of the law as it applies to the industries, including regulatory requirements, intellectual property, technology transfer agreements, licensing, clinical trial agreements and trade practices.
Our insurance practice works hand in hand with our clients to understand their legal and commercial issues, and provide practical, workable and cost effective solutions that meet their national and international needs. We are recognised as having leading individuals in many industry journals and directories and our Australian partners are particularly noted in the areas of professional indemnity, public liability, insurance, corporate and regulatory. Our market understanding helps our insurance clients deal with the continuing impact of the global financial crisis and ongoing legislative and regulatory changes.
Our Intellectual Property practice provides an unbroken line of service, covering protection, commercialisation, defence and enforcement of intellectual property rights. We draw on the experience of our trade mark attorneys and commercial and litigation intellectual property lawyers to provide legal services to many leading national and international businesses. Our industry knowledge encompasses biotechnology, textiles, clothing and footwear, IT, franchising, retail, publishing, insurance, government, telecommunications and pharmaceuticals.
We are a leader in litigation and dispute resolution with globally recognised lawyers who have extensive expertise in responding to disputes in the early stages through to the appellate level. Our experts advise on complex commercial matters in all areas of international litigation and dispute resolution including adjudication, arbitration, insolvency & restructuring and mediation. We excel at managing complex multi-party and multi-jurisdictional disputes.
We have one of the largest and most experienced occupational health and safety, security and anti-terrorism legal teams in the world. The team has acted on a number of high-profile incidents globally – including the 2009 Montara explosion and the 2006 Beaconsfield Mine disaster in Australia and the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster – and regularly advises private and public clients across industries on OHS compliance strategies. We also provide a global 24/7 emergency response service that ensures our clients can obtain assistance and advice at the time it is most needed.
We have a team of over 130 lawyers in Australia whose expertise transcends real estate, environment and planning issues – no other firm in the country combines all three disciplines. They use their experience to facilitate major transactions, helping clients maximise margins, identify, minimise or sell down risk, solve problems and manage complex and diverse real estate projects across multiple jurisdictions. Most of our work is with a mix of blue chip corporates, institutional investors and developers, acting for different sides of the property equation.
Our group has been actively involved in many of the major corporate insolvencies in Australia, as well as numerous international insolvencies and enforcement issues. We handle all aspects of insolvency and restructuring, from managing the consequences of loan default to complex restructurings. Our experience extends to advising on challenging cross-border matters and finding the right solution for local distressed companies, be it a consensual workout, receivership, voluntary administration or liquidation. Clients range from the major insolvency practitioners to leading financial institutions.
Our tax group specialises in all areas of commercial taxation, advising across industries, borders and jurisdictions. Clients including domestic and international corporations, banks and other financial institutions benefit from a breadth of expertise that extends from asset finance and corporate finance to investment funds and securitisation. The group prides itself on its flexibility, providing practical advice and keeping clients appraised of changing tax issues which impact their businesses.
Our technology, media and telecommunications group focuses on the acquisition, use and application of digital technologies. With a mix of high-level legal, technological and commercial expertise, our services range from advice to implementation – and embrace every digital and technology issue our clients are likely to face. These range from electronic transactional work to privacy on the Internet; from software development, licensing and maintenance agreements to strategic advice on business process outsourcing. We have acted for global IT suppliers, governments, banks and a diverse range of businesses.
Ranked tier 1 for transport in the recently released APL500 2011-2012.
We have a depth and breadth of resources across all aspects of the transport industry – from infrastructure to airports, rail, roads and logistics – and advise a number of Australian state government transport agencies and corporations, as well as some of the country’s best known transport and logistics companies. This experience has given us an in-depth understanding of risk allocation in major contracts and key issues affecting the transport sector in areas such as safety, environment, competition law, compliance and government tendering issues.