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Chris is a litigator specialising in regulatory, corporate and commercial litigation, commissions and inquiries, and administrative law proceedings.
Experience
Chris has extensive experience advising government regulators to conduct or companies and directors to respond to, regulatory investigations and proceedings, particularly in the banking and financial services sector where he has been involved in investigations and proceedings concerning the provision of consumer credit, the payment/receipt of conflicted remuneration, the setting of interest rates, the sale of insurance and superannuation products by banks, the trading of futures contracts, and the charging of fees for no service.
Chris also advises clients in relation to statutory interpretation, administrative decision-making and applications to review government decisions. He has acted in contentious administrative law matters including an application to the High Court for special leave to challenge a community group’s standing to enjoin the operations of a State-owned enterprise.
Chris’ areas of expertise include:
- regulatory investigations and enforcement proceedings
- director’s duties and continuous disclosure obligations
- anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) compliance
- compliance with Australia’s social media and online safety laws
- obtaining asset freezing and protection orders
- responding to commissions and government inquiries, including Royal Commissions
- the review of government decisions (judicial and merits review)
- corporate and commercial litigation.
Having managed numerous high profile disputes Chris has extensive experience assisting media teams and managing litigation to control media exposure.
Career highlights
Chris’ career highlights include:
- acting for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in its successful Federal Court and Full Federal Court proceeding against the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) concerning the bank’s failure to comply with its continuous disclosure obligations in relation to its 2015 $2.5 billion institutional share placement
- acting in civil penalty proceedings brought by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) against a poker machine operator for serious and systemic non-compliance with Australia’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) laws
- acting for the eSafety Commissioner in the successful defence of judicial review proceedings brought by the operator of the Telegram Messenger Application challenging the Commissioner’s power to issue an infringement notice
- obtaining orders from the Federal Court freezing the assets of:
- financial advice licensee United Global Capital and a related property investment company Global Capital Property Fund Limited; and, in separate proceedings
- Falcon Capital Limited and two of Falcon’s directors in connection with the collapse of the First Guardian Master Fund and related unregistered subsidiary funds, to protect investor funds pending applications to windup the companies and while investigations into the director’s conduct continued
- assisting the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) with all aspects of its response to the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, ensuring ASIC had an effective and influential voice
- assisting a client to overturn a decision by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) to refuse the client’s application for an export license exemption
- acting for VicForests, a State-owned timber harvesting enterprise, in its defence of numerous proceedings in the Victorian Supreme Court brought by groups seeking to obtain declaratory and injunctive relief to halt its operationsa
- assisting pharmaceutical companies to challenge adverse decisions relating to applications to list their products on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS)
- assisting a gas exploration and carbon storage client to challenge a variation to its carbon storage license
- acting to defend a shareholder oppressive conduct and access to company documents claim
- acting for a global logistics company to defend a significant breach of contract claim which could have impaired its national operations
- assisting a multinational information technology services firm to respond to a dispute arising from a data breach resulting in confidential commercial data being leaked on the dark web.
