Challenging Work
Challenging Work
- Advising Caltex Australia Ltd on its $3.5 billion joint venture with Woolworths to deliver discount fuel involving up to 450 service stations.
- Advising Vodafone in relation to the deployment of its 3G network.
- Acting on some of the largest IPOs in Australia in recent years. Freehills acted for Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Group plc on the $1.9 billion float of Promina Group Limited, the largest IPO in the world in the 2002–03 financial year, as well as several other significant IPOs including Pacific Brands Limited ($1.25 billion) and Just Group Ltd, two of the largest IPOs in the 2003–04 financial year. Freehills also advised on a number of significant hybrid issues, including the Commonwealth Bank's PERLS II Trust ($1 billion), ANZ StEPS and the Westfield Trust Convertible notes and Call Options issue, which was the largest public issue of its type by an Australian entity and first to be undertaken by an Australian listed property trust.
- Acting for Great Energy Alliance Corporation Pty Ltd (GEAC) on its $3.5 billion acquisition of Loy Yang Power.
- Advising Burns Philp on its $2.4 billion hostile takeover of Goodman Fielder.
- Advising CSR on its $6 billion demerger scheme. This scheme was significantly more complex than a standard demerger because it was, in effect, a reverse demerger, where the larger business was spun out.
- Advising on a number of significant share buy-backs for major Australian companies including the Mayne Group, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Woolworths Limited.
- Acting for Lend Lease in the longest coronial inquiry in Australian legal history, the Thredbo landslide.
- Acting for the underwriters of the directors' and officers' liability policy of the HIH group. Freehills was involved in all aspects of the matter including the HIH Royal Commission.
- Acting for Mayne in relation to issues arising from the recall of Pan Pharmaceutical manufactured products.
- Acting for the provisional liquidator of United Medical Protection, the largest medical defence organisation in Australia. The case made corporate history as it is the only time a company in provisional liquidation has been successfully restructured.
- Currently representing 20 banks defending claims by companies in the Bell Group and their liquidators. This is the largest piece of litigation presently before the Australian courts and perhaps in Australian legal history.
- Acting for Intertrust Technologies Corporation, successfully settling its worldwide patent dispute with Microsoft Corporation.
- Advising on every major tollroad project in Australia during the past decade, including the Western Sydney Orbital, Australia's largest infrastructure project in 2003.
- Acting for the Victorian Government and its related State entities following the explosion and fire at Esso's Longford Gas Plant in 1998. The class action was the largest in Australian legal history.