ANZ law firm news

Anthony Harper have had another stellar year.  Corporate and commercial assignments have ranged from the sale of vintage warbird aircraft, through acting for the developer of the South Island's tallest building, the C1 Tower, to the hugely successful listing of NZ Windfarms on the New Zealand Stock Exchange.

Legal stalwarts John Denton and Robert Milliner have returned from the second Australia-China Joint CEO Roundtable meeting in Beijing along with 12 other Australian business leaders.

A subsidiary of the second largest coal producer of Indonesia, Adaro Energy has inked a US$400m senior loan facility from a syndicate of 12 banks to refinance existing debts and capital expenditures. The loan secured has a maturity period of seven years – the longest tenor of any major financing to date in the Indonesian market.

Acquisition of Brownes Dairy and Juice Business

Deal Highlights: Origin makes an offer

DLA Phillips Fox has had its first casualty since announcing financial integration with DLA Piper. Head of the workplace relations and employment law team, John Tuck, has joined Corrs Chambers Westgarth as a partner in the Melbourne office.

During January 2011 a number of high profile deals were announced. This is a summary of some of those that were considered either interesting in terms of industry activity or indicative of current trends.

As head of the CBA Group legal department, David Cohen makes light work of billion-dollar mergers and class actions. But as Olivia Collings discovers, it’s the success of his colleagues that gives him true satisfaction

In-house lawyers and the national corporate lawyers’ body have dismissed claims that the billable hour is the “choice of the client” by the president of the NSW Law Society and HWL Ebsworth partner, Stuart Westgarth.

Brisbane law firm update - which offices are open and which have temporary premises

A number of Brisbane law firms remain shut a week after being evacuated ahead of what has become the most devastating flood in Queensland history.

Norton Rose, Minter Ellison and Allen & Gledhill have advised on the loan facilities granted to fund the acquisition of Australian sugar producer Sucrogen (formerly CSR's sugar and renewable energy business) by Wilmar International, one of the largest listed companies by market capitalisation on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Reports of the death of the billable hour may be premeture

An increased number of overseas acquisitions by Australian corporates and the continued rise of Asia are just some of the predictions for 2011 outlined by Freehills M&A partners Tony Damian and Neil Pathak.

Finance, derivatives and insolvency specialist Chris Forrest has returned to New Zealand and Minter Ellison Rudd Watts after 14 years in the UK.

Macpherson + Kelley’s class action against Bendigo and Adelaide Bank has been thrown out of the Supreme Court of Victoria.

Blake Dawson will again be representing the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) when it goes to court to challenge a class action being run by Maurice Blackburn.

Class action lawyers Maurice Blackburn will today file with the Federal Court the first of a series of class actions on bank fees.

In-house legal departments and general counsels in Australia and New Zealand are under pressure to decrease costs and expenditure, according to the 2010 Legal Department Benchmarking Report.

The average A$1m worth of legal work that in-house legal departments outsource annually could be done for less than half that cost in-house with good planning, according to one consultant.