Corporate & Commercial

Services and Expertise

Our Corporate & Commercial team has a depth of expertise and an understanding of the key elements driving our clients' businesses.

We negotiate, document and advise on major asset acquisitions and dispositions, and commercial contracts including terms of trade, extensions of credit, supply, distribution and licensing agreements, hire agreements, franchises, shareholder and unitholder agreements, IP and IT agreements, service and maintenance agreements, consultancy agreements and construction contracts for clients within various industries.

We advise major domestic and international corporations, publicly listed companies, commercial institutions and businesses. Our clients include Ericsson Australia, GM, Fulton Hogan, the Spotlight Group, SKF and Yamaha Music Australia. Our clients value our ability to understand their particular businesses and requirements, as well as our ability to provide practical and strategic advice in a cost effective and efficient manner.

Our lawyers have expertise across a range of industries, including transport and logistics, construction, insurance, retail, energy and resources, health, property and finance.

We stay abreast of developments in key overseas jurisdictions, particularly the US and Europe.

Areas of Legal Expertise

Our expertise covers:

• negotiating and documenting sale/acquisition transactions (assets/shares/units/businesses)
• drafting and negotiating commercial contracts
• drafting supply and distribution agreements, including for the international supply/distribution of products
• drafting joint venture, partnership, shareholder, unitholder and alliance agreements
• preparing and tailoring trading terms
• drafting confidentiality agreements
• advising, negotiating and drafting contracts for construction projects
• providing trade practices and consumer protection advice
• capital and debt raisings
• compliance with Listing Rules and Corporations Act requirements
• corporate governance and risk management
• corporate reconstructions
• corporate structuring, including joint ventures and transactions affecting share capital
• employment and industrial relations
• environment and climate change
• financial statements and auditing
• foreign investment
• franchising
• intellectual property protection, enforcement and transactions

• mergers and acquisitions, takeovers, IPOs and schemes of arrangement.

Additional Services

As well as legal services, we offer clients various complementary services including:

• conducting seminars on relevant topics
• providing regular updates on changes to laws affecting our clients

• making introductions to other clients where synergies may evolve, particularly where business development may result.

Experience

Some recent matters we have worked on include:

• advising and negotiating the procurement of transport and logistics solutions for a prominent national retailer with a turnover of $800 million
• documenting large scale supply agreements, terms of sale, hire agreements and associated documents, including preparing applications for credit and terms of supply for Hanson Construction Materials and Landmark, and advising on implementation strategies
• acting for Locker Group in the acquisition of Richardson Pacific and its subsidiaries in Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia, and the subsequent buyout by offshore interests ($70 million)
• acting for an Australian technology company relative to a capital raising in the US
• acting on a substantial (approx. $200 million) acquisition of an Australia wide infrastructure and construction group on behalf of a New Zealand based civil construction company
• advising an Australian and US based mining group on an on-market takeover, acquisitions of mining tenements, joint ventures, capital raisings, corporate structuring and pre-feasibility agreements
• acting on the merger of two textile wholesalers where the consolidated business had a turnover of approximately $100 million per annum
• negotiating the sale and transfer of a trunked mobile radio network from a private telecommunications company to an Australian state government. This transaction included the transfer of all assets, software and hardware, the assignment of numerous site leases and licences, and the negotiation and drafting of an ongoing services agreement by which the telecommunications company agreed to provide continuing maintenance and support services for the network.