‘Beat the Clock’ 2023 – Substantive law | Be alert, not alarmed! What lies ahead in 2023?

Andrea has more than 25 years’ experience and specialises in financial services, banking and corporate law. Andrea brings legal capability and insight into regulatory matters, corporate governance, compliance and risk management. She assists her clients to adapt to the changing regulatory landscape to ensure they meet the expectations of their customers and shareholders and regulators.

Her expertise extends to designing and conducting a broad range of financial services training for financial services providers, their senior executives and responsible managers, legal & compliance officers, consumer advocates and lawyers.

Andrea advises domestic and foreign institutions on acquiring financial services and credit licences and exemptions. She specialises in advising on structuring and establishing financial services and credit businesses including licence obligations, drafting plain English documents, procedures, systems audits and online web application processes. She advises on regulatory compliance projects and audits, regulatory enforcement defences, and regulator investigations and disputes.

Andrea’s experience includes advising clients on financial products and channels, including FinTech solutions, peer to peer lending platforms, crowd funding, payment systems, crypto currency, reward programs, gift cards and financial services acquisitions, disposals and alliances.

Andrea also has in-depth knowledge of privacy laws and regularly advises clients on data and privacy security, credit reporting and breach remediation. She has assisted entities reform their privacy compliance.

Andrea regularly advises on AML/CTF compliance. Andrea also regularly conducts training programs and workshops for clients including Australian Credit Licence and Australian Financial Services Licence compulsory responsible managers training, privacy training, regulatory updates and “Back to Basics” credit law, privacy, anti-money laundering and other training workshops.

Andrea is widely published and her authorships include 7 editions of the leading consumer law text “Annotated National Credit Code”, with the most recent edition published on 31 October 2024 by LexisNexis, the ‘Australia’ chapters in the “Consumer Finance Law Review” and the “Banking Regulation Review”, which is published by The Law Reviews, Law Business Research Ltd, UK.

Andrea is also a member of numerous financial services professional associations. She is the Deputy Chair of the Privacy Committee and a member of the Financial Services and Digital Commerce Committees of the Law Council of Australia Business Law Section. Andrea is also one of three members of the Australia Finance Industry Association’s (AFIA) Code Compliance Committee for the Online Small Business Lenders Code.

In addition to her recommendation in The Legal 500 Asia-Pacific for Fintech & Financial Services Regulatory and Data Protection in the 2024 edition, Andrea is also ranked for Financial Services Regulation in Chambers and Partners. She has also recently been named as Best Lawyer for Commercial Law by The Best Lawyers in Australia, 2025 edition.

Anne is an experienced dispute resolution lawyer who partners with clients to achieve the best and most efficient outcomes when disputes arise. Anne has represented large multi-nationals, as well as smaller corporations and individuals. She has acted in a wide range of commercial disputes including representing parties in a Royal Commission, and in Courts and Tribunals of all levels in a number of Australian states, as well as in the United Kingdom.

Anne has represented both claimants and defendants in commercial and other class actions, including in relation to a client’s products.

She regularly advises clients on contractual obligations and possible actions against contracting parties, including actions for breaches of legislation, such as the Competition and Consumer Act and the Corporations Act and in negligence, as well as defending clients against such claims. Anne also has expertise in prosecuting and defending professional indemnity claims and claims on insurance.

Anne has run litigious matters for clients from a range of sectors and industries, including pharmaceutical, medical devices, energy and resources, health, transport, wine and retail. She has managed cases arising from complex construction and procurement contracts, and property acquisitions, and disputes arising from joint venture relationships.

Anne’s experience includes a range of alternative dispute mechanisms, including mediation, expert determination and arbitration.

Anne is on the editorial panel for LexisNexis Competition and Consumer Law News, to which she regularly contributes.

Andrew Rankin is an experienced corporate and commercial lawyer with a career spanning more than 25 years. Based in Brisbane, he has an exceptional reputation for his expertise in competition and consumer law, and his practice also includes mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance law. Andrew advises both private companies and publicly listed companies and has particularly strong experience in acting for clients in the financial services, health and life sciences, mining and agribusiness sectors.

Over many years Andrew has provided competition and consumer law advice and training to many private sector and government clients, advising them on their obligations under the legislation and how they should interact with their competitors, suppliers and customers. He advises on restrictive trade practices drawing from his extensive knowledge of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (CCA) and Australian Consumer Law. He has built a productive working relationship with the ACCC, successfully representing many clients in dealings and applications to the ACCC in relation to anti-competitive behaviour. Andrew is a respected member of the Law Council of Australia’s Competition and Consumer Law committee, and his expertise in this area has been consistently recognised in the Best Lawyers Australia each year since 2012. He was also named ‘Brisbane Lawyer of the Year’ for Competition Law in the 2022 edition.

Andrew also has extensive experience in working with national and international clients on mergers and acquisitions, due diligences, capital raisings and business ventures. His expertise includes take-overs, schemes of arrangement, cross-border acquisitions, corporate restructurings and company divestments. He advises boards on directors’ duties and corporate governance issues. His commercial practice includes advising on commercial agreements, joint venture and shareholder agreements, supply contracts and the unfair contract terms regime. Best Lawyers Australia and the Doyle’s Guide have recognised Andrew in these areas of law, reflecting this additional depth of expertise.

Highly respected by his clients, they appreciate Andrew’s knowledge and expertise, coupled with his commercial acumen, clear communication skills, attention to detail and professionalism.

Craig is an intellectual property and technology lawyer with expertise in all facets of IT contracting and procurement, including advising on competitive procurement processes and the preparation and negotiation of supply and service contracts, such as anything-as-a-service, agile software development, hardware supply and maintenance contracts and managed services arrangements. He has also worked with clients to develop terms of use for electronic commerce platforms.

Craig is experienced in data security and information privacy matters, such as preparing privacy and credit reporting policies, employee procedures and data breach response plans, as well as delivery of privacy training. Craig has a broad knowledge of Victorian and Commonwealth privacy laws, as well as the GDPR. Craig has advised a number of clients on compliance with the mandatory data breach notification requirements under the Privacy Act, including whether a data breach is notifiable and the preparation of notifications and applications for exemption from notification requirements.

As a registered trade mark attorney, he has routinely advised and represented clients in relation to intellectual property protection, commercialisation and enforcement. Craig has worked with clients to recognise and protect their valuable intellectual property assets, including identifying those assets and taking steps to protect the assets through registration (if available). He has prepared and negotiated commercialisation agreements, including licence agreements, collaboration agreements and research and development agreements.