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

Gilbert + Tobin tackled negotiations for Westpac Banking regarding its tie-up with St Georges Bank. The deal was Australia’s largest ever corporate merger, and created the country’s largest banking institution. The firm also turned heads representing AGL Energy in disposing of A$1.2 billion-worth (US$960 million) of Queensland Gas shares. Garry Besson, Philip Breden, Gary Lawler and John Williamson-Noble stand at the helm of the group.

The 13-partner litigation and dispute resolution practice at Gilbert + Tobin, headed by Michael Williams, has particular strength in connection with internet publications and applications including search engines, content hosts, content providers and user-generated-content sites. The firm is representing the major international film studios in their groundbreaking action against Internet Service Provider iiNet, in a claim that the ISP is allowing copyright infringement on its network. Other work includes advising Google Inc in defence of proceedings brought by the ACCC, in what is the first reported case of a market regulator taking action against an internet company.

The IP department at Gilbert + Tobin is split into four dedicated practice areas: patents; copyright; trade marks, designs and domain names; and commercial IP. Housing particular strength on patents and copyright, the firm also benefits from its high tech roots and is active advising clients on anti-counterfeiting, high tech investigations and internet based work.

Key clients of the practice include AGL, Aristocrat Technologies Australia, EMI Music Australia, Google Group, Motion Picture Association, Red Bull and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.

Gilbert + Tobin acts for EMI on all of its digital music deals, and recently drafted and negotiated a full suite of licence agreements with EMI’s digital music partners. The firm also successfully acted for FOXTEL in a major claim against smart card programmers and pirate equipment providers. This tested the rights of pay-tv providers to protect encoded broadcasts and was one of the first uses of the broadcast decoding device provisions in Australia’s Copyright Act.

Partner Michael Williams heads the five-partner department, and recently acted for the leading film studios in their landmark copyright infringement case against an Australian ISP (iiNet). He also advised Nine Network in its long running case against IceTV in the High Court on copyright protection in compilations and databases.

Other leading lawyers include Anthony Muratore, Lisa Lennon and Michael Argy.