About Fiona Crosbie
Fiona is Chair of Allens.
Fiona advises clients in complex merger clearances, cartel and other competition and consumer law investigations, litigation and access matters. Fiona is frequently relied on by companies to formulate regulatory strategies where the ACCC and other regulators are key stakeholders.
She has been involved in many of the largest and most complex merger clearances in Australia, including working with international counsel and economists on global mergers. Fiona has acted in high-profile competition cases, including proceedings that established the application of legal professional privilege to investigations brought by the competition regulator and seminal cartel and misuse of market power prosecutions. Most recently she represented Vodafone Hutchison Australia in proceedings against the ACCC in respect of its decision to block the TPG merger.
Fiona is a former Chair of the Competition and Consumer Committee of the Law Council of Australia. Fiona is recognised as a leading competition practitioner in Chambers Asia-Pacific, The Asia-Pacific Legal 500, Best Lawyers and Global Competition Review. Global Competition Review named Fiona in its most recent list of leading women in antitrust worldwide. In 2019 Fiona was awarded a Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa) from Macquarie University for her contribution to the legal profession.
Mergers
- APNO – ACCC clearance on the acquisition by JC Decaux
- BcIMC – acquisition of a stake in Glencore Agriculture
- Dairy Farmers – sale to National Foods and the authorisation of its supply arrangements
- Gambro AB – acquisition by Baxter International, including negotiation of a complex undertaking
- HealtheCare – acquisitions of a number of hospitals from Healthscope and subsequently Pulse
- Johnson & Johnson – acquisition of Synthes
- M2 Group – merger with Vocus and subsequent acquisition of Nextgen Networks
- Oracle – acquisitions of PeopleSoft, Siebel and Sun Microsystems
- Pfizer – significant global mergers including US$17 billion acquisition of Hospira, divestment of Pfizer's global infant nutrition business to Nestlé, proposed merger with Allergan, Pfizer's joint venture with GSK to form world's largest OTC consumer healthcare business, and Pfizer's current transaction involving its Upjohn Division and Mylan
- St. George Bank – merger with Westpac Banking Corporation, the largest bank merger ever in Australia
- Vodafone Hutchison Australia - in Federal Court proceedings against the ACCC regarding VHA's merger with TPG
- Wesfarmers – acquisition of Coles, at the time the largest merger in Australia corporate history
- West Australian Newspapers Holdings – acquisition of Seven Media Group
- Western Digital – acquisition of Hitachi
Enforcement & advisory
- Royal Commission – advising an international bank on the Royal Commission into banks and financial institutions
- Pfizer – successfully defended the highly publicised court proceedings commenced by the ACCC for alleged misuse of market power, both at trial and on appeal to the Full Federal Court and the High Court
- Global investment banks – a number of significant ACCC cartel investigations
- Medicines Australia – competition adviser to the industry body for the pharmaceutical industry, involving successive authorisation applications
- Energy and resources sector – acted in Australian Competition Tribunal proceedings regarding the acquisition of Macquarie Generation
- Esso – resolving the ACCC's publicly expressed concerns regarding the joint marketing arrangement between Esso and BHP for Gippsland Basin gas.
Access
- Airports – regulatory access and competition advisor to a number of airports including in respect of successfully resisting an application for an access declaration of services, generally advising in relation to the proposed Western Sydney Airport and advising a number of airports in relation to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into the Economic Regulation of Airports
- Port of Brisbane Corporation – successfully resisting an application for access declaration of portside services
- Infrastructure investors – advising on the access and other regulatory risk surrounding their acquisition of port, rail and other infrastructure assets
- Telecommunications – conducting proceedings in the Australian Competition Tribunal on appeals from decisions of the ACCC regarding access pricing