About Kate Austin
Kate is a commercial litigator with almost 20 years of experience acting in complex commercial litigation, class actions, regulatory investigations and public inquiries. She has acted for major Australian and international corporations in high-stakes matters in the financial services, healthcare and technology sectors.
Kate works hand in hand with clients to address the strategic, commercial and reputational issues arising in disputes and investigations in a manner consistent with client objectives. She has extensive experience working with international counsel as part of a global team to implement litigation strategies in Australia.
Kate takes a technology-led approach to the conduct of disputes and investigations, leveraging advanced legal technologies to deliver time and cost savings and forensic benefits to clients.
Kate's relevant experience includes:
- Regulatory investigations: acting for major financial service providers and individuals in investigations by ASIC concerning alleged breaches of financial services laws, misleading and deceptive conduct and breaches of directors' duties. This includes acting for ANZ in ASIC's investigation and subsequent agreed penalty proceeding concerning payment of bonus interest (part of the omnibus proceedings brought by ASIC concerning conduct in ANZ's retail and markets division).
- Public Inquiries and Royal Commissions: acting for corporate and government parties in some of the most significant inquiries in recent times, including as lead partner for Australian Unity in the Aged Care and Disability Royal Commissions, the Department of Justice and Community Safety in the Victorian Hotel Quarantine Inquiry and Bupa in the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.
- Class actions: defending a broad range of class actions for major Australian and international corporates, including consumer, investor and cartel proceedings involving complex multi-party trials and court settlement approval processes. This includes acting for Coles in defence of a class action concerning its Down Down program, for ANZ and Bendigo Bank in defence of financial product class actions (the later in relation to the collapse of the Great Southern companies, one of Victoria's largest class action trials) and for Air France, KLM and Martinair in the aircargo cartel class action.
- Competition disputes: acting for Epic Games in two Federal Court proceedings against Apple and Google alleging misuse of market power and other anti-competitive conduct in respect of mobile app distribution and in-app payment systems. The Federal Court found in favour of Epic Games in what was the first big tech antitrust litigation in Australia involving complex expert evidence from a range of disciplines, a 16-week trial and two related class actions.