As Australia’s merger control landscape undergoes significant transformation, stay informed to navigate the evolving regulatory. This essential seminar brings together leading experts to provide critical insights into the new merger control regime and how it has affected due diligence, and the valuation challenges shaping today’s M&A transactions.

Presenters

Peter McDonald, Partner, A&O Shearman
Peter McDonald advises clients on challenging competition law, consumer and regulatory issues with a view to giving options and finding the best commercial solution. His practice includes transactional advice, merger clearances, joint ventures and collaborations, access and market regulation and enforcement response and defence. Peter has worked across a range of industry sectors with leading clients such as BHP Billiton, Woodside, the North West Shelf Venture, Orica, DuluxGroup, Singapore Power, National Foods, Wesfarmers, Gunns and GUD. Peter has excellent relationships with key economic regulators and worked as a senior officer in the ACCC prior to joining Freehills. Peter holds a Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Laws from the University of Melbourne and a Graduate Diploma in Economics from the Australian National University. Peter is also a member of the Law Council of Australia Competition and Consumer Committee.

Liesl Malcolm, Partner, Pitcher Partners
For the last 15 years Liesl has built an impressive career as an integral part of the Pitcher Partners Corporate Finance team. She has extensive experience in valuations, having worked on many engagements assisting clients with their personal and business needs advising on tax, accounting and litigation matters. A well rounded professional, Liesl specialises in accounting and tax restructures, expert valuation reports for litigation matters, intangible asset valuations for corporate transactions and employee equity schemes. Passionate about supporting her clients, Liesl helps to simplify the valuation process and provides reliable advice, arriving at a valuation that is independent and thorough. She is dedicated to providing a valuation outcome that makes sense and is supported by valuation methodologies and market data. Her clients value her technical knowledge, commercial solutions, independence and her ability to explain and advise on complicated matters in a friendly and easy to understand manner. For Liesl, it is most rewarding to help a client achieve a positive outcome and solve any problems. Joining the Corporate Finance team in its inception year, Liesl progressed through the firm to be named a Partner in 2022.


Dr Martyn Taylor, Partner, Norton Rose Fulbright
Dr Martyn Taylor is a corporate and commercial Partner in the Sydney office of global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright. He has some 30 years’ experience in competition law. He sits on the board and also heads the telecommunications and media group, and the Australian competition and trade group. He is described as “smart, efficient, friendly”. Martyn’s practice covers transactional, contentious and advisory. He is a well-known TMT, infrastructure, energy, competition and regulatory lawyer. Martyn is recommended by the key legal directories and has been named as one of the ‘top 10’ TMT legal advisors in Asia. Martyn has won numerous prizes and awards, including recently for the $15 billion merger of Vodafone with TPG Telecom (M&A deal of the year 2021). He has attended Harvard University and Oxford University. He has published well over 100 publications, including the award-nominated book 'International Competition Law'. Qualifications: PhD(Law), CME(Harvard), LLM(Law), MFin(Corporate Finance), LLB(Hons), BA(Economics)(Hons), BSc, GAICD.

Divesh Patel, Partner, K&L Gates
Divesh Patel is a Private Equity and Mergers and Acquisitions partner in the firm’s Corporate practice. He focuses on private equity transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and foreign investment. He also regularly advises on cross-border transactions, joint ventures, commercial transactions, distressed sale transactions, and restructurings. He advises on a wide variety of domestic and cross-border clients, including private equity sponsors, across a range of sectors including logistics, manufacturing, retail, FMCG, financial services, infrastructure, aviation and transport, media, technology and telecommunications.

Dietrich Marquardt, Special Counsel, Norton Rose Fulbright
Dietrich Marquardt is a competition/antitrust and regulatory lawyer based in Sydney. He acts for Australian and international corporate clients on all aspects of competition law, including in relation to transactional, contentious and advisory work. He is highly commercial in his approach and has great rapport with clients. Dietrich regularly advises on the regulatory and competition aspects of highly complex, multi-jurisdictional matters, and consistently delivers outcomes that exceed clients' expectations, resulting in achievement of significant strategic and commercial objectives. Dietrich has been recognised as being one of the "Ones to Watch" in the Competition Law space, in the 2023, 2024 and 2025 edition of Best Lawyers in Australia.