Major Areas of Specialisation
Public and private mergers and acquisitions including business sale and purchase, joint ventures, corporate advisory, capital markets and corporate and securities matters generally, together with some commercial litigation.
Qualifications
BA (Hons) Law with Law Studies in Europe (Oxford University) (First Class Honours)
Admitted as solicitor to the Supreme Court of England and Wales, and to Supreme Court of New South Wales
Notable Assignments
- Advising Bruce Gordon’s Birketu in relation to shareholder guarantees for, and ultimately a joint venture bid (by way of DOCA proposal) with Lachlan Murdoch’s Illyria for, then ASX-listed Ten Network; and separately, advising on establishment of Broadcasting Services Act and Takeovers Code compliant cash-settled share swap derivative position of 23% in ASX-listed Nine Entertainment Co. Holdings
- Acting for WIN Corporation on novel litigation in respect of regional affiliation agreement with Nine Entertainment Co. concerning whether live-streaming of television content constituted broadcasting, including appeal to Court of Appeal; and separately on entry into five-year regional affiliation agreement with Ten Network and on the acquisition of the northern NSW television interests of ASX-listed Southern Cross for an aggregate purchase consideration of A$55m
- Acting for interests related to Australian Container Freight Services seeking a court injunction against the $9 billion Qube/Brookfield break-up scheme of arrangement proposed by ASX-listed Asciano, and then ultimately successful commercial settlement involving acquisition of the other half of ACFS
- Acting for various ASX-listed mining companies including Aquila Resources Ltd and Panoramic Resources Ltd in multiple acquisitions and resolution of joint venture disputes concerning production assets
- Acting for RAC (Australia) in acquisition of outstanding share of real property joint venture to actively litigious background
- Acting for Vale S.A. (then the world’s second largest mining company by market capitalisation) on listing of depositary receipts on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange by way of introduction
- Acting for New World Resources NV on its GBP1.1bn initial public offering on the London, Prague and Warsaw Stock Exchanges
- Acting for FTSE-100 listed 3i in respect of GBP700m return of value to shareholders by bonus issue of listed B shares and alternative broker/company buy-backs, together with share capital consolidation
- Acting for FTSE-100 listed Shire in respect of new holding company share-for-share scheme of arrangement to create distributable reserves by court-ordered capital reduction
- Acting for Grosvenor Group (privately owned global corporate real property group of the UK’s wealthiest UK-born resident) on cross-border joint venture for ownership, management and development of shopping and leisure centres with Sonae SGPS (largest private employer in Portugal)
Latest Publications
- 9 June 2017 – Foreign Investment Law Jurisdiction Q&A – Australia (as published in LexisNexis Foreign Investment Law Guide 2017-2018)
- 8 December 2015 – Revised Foreign Investment Regime in Australia
- 1 November 2015 – Public mergers and acquisitions in Australia: Overview (as published in “Practical Law” magazine)
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