Asialaw Profiles
The Guide to the legal markets of the Asia-Pacific

Blake Dawson continues to attract high-profile work in the banking and finance sector. Martin Coleman leads the group that serves more big name clients by the year. Coca-Cola Amatil turned to the firm in 2008 for financing work on several corporate facilities around the region, and Bluescope Steel has instructed Blake Dawson on corporate treasury work throughout the past year.

The firm has remained a strong force in equity capital markets where many clients say the firm performs best. Recently, the firm earned an appointment to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s national legal services panel. The firm has a strong underwriters’ practice, recently advising Merrill Lynch on a A$1.74 billion (US$1.5 billion) equity placement by CSL, and Wesfarmers on a A$2.5 billion capital raising arrangement.

On the issuers’ side, the team advised BlueScope Steel on a capital restructure in May 2009, which included an accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer of up to A$1.41 billion. The firm has also acted on multi-million dollar deals for ANZ, National Australia Bank, Bank of Scotland (Ireland), and Natixis. Blake Dawson is lead adviser to a consortium of 16 coal producers, including BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto Coal Australia, Vale (Brazil) and Xstrata Coal, on the project financing for the Wiggins Island coal export terminal in Gladstone. The A$5 billion (US$4 billion) project is Australia’s largest greenfield project of 2008/2009, and Blake Dawson is advising on all aspects of the financing and construction of the terminal.

With a strong focus on the resources sector, Blake Dawson’s M&A practice is easily among Australia’s best. Carl Della-Bosca’s move to rejoin the team following her leave of absence with Slaughter and May in London, together with David Ryan’s promotion to partner, shore up the firm’s resources in the corporate department.

Key deals include leading the charge for BHP Billiton on the Australian law aspects of its stirring last-minute joint venture offer to Rio Tinto. This complex transaction saw the firm’s client nab a A$5.8 billion deal with Chinalco’s much sought after target at the final stages of Rio’s negotiations with its Chinese suitor.

A second front-page mining transaction saw Blake Dawson advise China Minmetals on its pursuit of home-grown counterpart Oz Minerals. The deal wrapped with agreeable shareholders selling Oz Minerals at A$1.7 billion (US$1.36 billion) to the PRC state-owned enterprise on revised terms. Finally, Blake Dawson represented Kirin Holdings on its proposed buyout of Lion Nathan.

Big names in the practice include Bill Koeck, Marie McDonald and David Williamson.

Covering all aspects of dispute resolution and litigation across every major industry sector, the practice at Blake Dawson has enjoyed a very busy year on many of Australia’s highest profile and most significant commercial cases. Highlights include work on the largest ever civil litigation, and the largest judgment in the country’s history (the A$1.6 billion (US$1.4 billion) Bell Group litigation), as well as commercial cases involving the likes of BrisConnections, James Hardie, Opes Prime and Lift Capital, Sons of Gwalia and Ingot v Macquarie. The firm has also been acting in the two highest profile Commissions of Inquiry: Equine Influenza and Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission.

Blake Dawson’s disputes practice represents many ASX-listed blue-chip corporates, in addition to banks, financial institutions, accountancy firms, insurance firms, government and regulatory bodies. Key clients include ANZ Bank, Coca-Cola Amatil, Deloitte, Department of Defence, Macquarie Bank, Newcrest Mining, RailCorp, Shell and UBS.

The practice is headed by Ashley Wharton who, in April 2009, successfully obtained a judgment in his clients’ favour on the Bell Group litigation. This was Australia’s longest running civil trial in Australian corporate history (involving a 404 day trial and some 2,600 pages of reasons for judgment). Wharton’s 36-partner team includes Class Action practice head John Emmerig, as well as Andrew Carter, Chris Davidson, John Pavlakis and Peter Voss. In June 2008, the team was joined by Georgia Quick from Clayton Utz.

Blake Dawson’s IP practice offers clients the complete range of contentious and non-contentious specialist services and is know to be extremely commercial and solution focused. On the trade marks side, the firm manages portfolios for such brands as Condé Nast Publications Australian and Qantas Airways. And it has more recently been instructed by Burger King, HSBC and Rolex – while AstraZeneca appointed the firm to its IP advisory group this year.

On the patent litigation side, Blake Dawson recently finished more than nine years of representation for subsidiaries of Swedish medical technology and healthcare group Gambro and Gambro Lundia in a settlement with Fresenius Medical Care Australia.

Respected team members include Lisa Ritson, Peter Chalk and Ben Miller.