Cases

• Steelforce Trading Pty Ltd v Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science [2018] FCAFC 20. Appeared as junior counsel for the Appellant (with PA Walker SC and S Lloyd SC). The case concerned the proper interpretation and application of Part XVB of the Customs Act 1901 and related regulations. Appeal allowed by majority.
• Canberra Cleaners Pty Ltd v Commissioner for ACT Revenue [2017] ACTSC 197, [2017] ACTSC 303, [2017] ACTSC 340, [2018] ACTSC 203. Appearance (with PA Walker SC) at several hearings concerning the enforcement of a payroll tax debt owed by a cleaning company. The hearings concerned the validity of garnishee notices and directors penalty notices issued under the Taxation Administration Act 1999 (ACT) and involved questions of statutory interpretation, administrative law principles, and discrete areas of law such as the Harman obligation. 
• Read v Burns [2017] ACTSC 184. Appeared with Mark Walsh SC for the first defendant solicitor where the plaintiff alleged that the first defendant had failed to properly advise him in relation to a real estate transaction. Questions raised in the case included the scope of a solicitor’s duty to their client when acting on a conveyance, and the obligation of a solicitor to make inquiries of their client prior to entering into a transaction. Judgment was entered for the defendants with costs.
• Foote v Barton Property Partnership No 1 [2017] ACTSC 21. Appeared with Mark Walsh SC for the plaintiffs/cross-defendants in a dispute between a retiring partner and his former partnership. Aspects of partnership law, contract interpretation and restitution were canvassed in these proceedings.
• Austree Pty Ltd and Ors v Guo and Ors (2016). Appeared as junior counsel (initially with DA Smallbone and then unled) for the Second Defendant in the High Court of the Solomon Islands at the hearing of this matter before Commissioner Mildren (formerly judge of the Northern Territory Supreme Court). Also appeared for the same party in the Court of Appeal of the Solomon Islands regarding the application of the rule in Weldon v Neale, John Pfeiffer v Rogerson, and related cases in response to the grant of leave to the Claimants to make a late amendment application to their pleading. The case concerned a dispute between two businessmen over the proper interpretation of a contract executed in China for work to be carried out in the Solomon Islands. A complex matter concerning private international law, choice of laws, restitution, contract and related topics.