Current practice

Professor John Carter holds a personal chair in the field of Commercial Law at the University of Sydney and is regarded as one of the pre-eminent contract lawyers in Australia. John joined Freehills as a consultant in 1992.

John provides specialist contract and commercial law advice to the firm’s clients. This involves:

• reviewing contracts, particularly in relation to liability, commercial risk management (eg the allocation of risk through indemnities and limitation of liability clauses) and enforceability
• advising on commercial disputes
• drafting contracts to reflect sophisticated contractual arrangements (for example, where it is necessary to deal with enforcement by multiple parties, statutory regimes such as the Trade Practices Act), and
• providing assistance in the formulation of commercial strategies for clients in the structure and management of their transactions.

In addition:

Industry experience

• CBA outsourcing transactions
• NRMA demutualisation
• standard form contract documents for Avis Australia, WorldxChange and David Jones
• the obligations in relation to the outsourcing of various investment and administration functions by a trustee in a funds management context
• advices to the National Bank’s Wealth Management Division on the duties of a trustee, a responsible entity and a life company (and their directors) under superannuation, managed investments, life insurance and financial services legislation (respectively)
• Air Services litigation, and
• numerous potentially litigious commercial contract disputes.
  

John is able to add immense value to the problem resolution process and to the advice Freehills provides to a client, particularly through his finely tuned analytical skills and extensive knowledge of relevant case law.

Further, because of his background and his extensive research and writing, he brings an objective approach to the resolution of a commercial problem, and can advise on the latest developments and current legal thinking overseas in a particular area to provide innovative solutions to complex legal problems.

Professional background

John completed Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts degrees at the University of Sydney. In 1977, he spent a year as Associate to the Hon Mr Justice Franki of the Federal Court of Australia. Between 1978 and 1980, he was W M Tapp Research Student at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He graduated as a Doctor of Philosophy in 1981. In that year, he took up a Lectureship in the Faculty of Law of the University of Sydney.

John has served as:

• a Commissioner (part-time) with the Law Reform Commission of New South Wales
• Executive Editor of the Sydney Law Review
• Chairman of the Education Committee of the Commercial Law Association of Australia.

John is widely published in Contract Law. His books include:

• Carter on Contract, a two volume loose-leaf service, published by LexisNexis Butterworths, Sydney
• Breach of Contract, 2nd ed, 1991, published jointly by Law Book Co Ltd, Sydney and Sweet & Maxwell, London
• Contract Law in Australia, 5th ed, 2007, with Associate Professor Elisabeth Peden of Sydney Law School and Dr G J Tolhurst of Sydney Law School, published by LexisNexis Butterworths, Sydney, and
• Restitution Law in Australia, 1995, with Justice Keith Mason, President of the New South Wales Court of Appeal, published by Butterworths, Sydney.

John is also:

• the author of two titles in Halsbury’s Laws of Australia: 'Contract' and ‘Sale of Goods’, and
• General Editor of the Journal of Contract Law.