About Fiona Crosbie
Fiona is a senior partner in the Competition, Consumer & Regulatory team and the immediate past Chair of Allens.
Fiona advises clients in complex merger clearances, cartel and other competition and consumer law investigations, litigation and access matters. She is frequently relied on by companies to formulate regulatory strategies where the ACCC and other regulators are key stakeholders.
Fiona has been involved in many of the largest and most complex merger clearances in Australia, including global mergers. Recently, she represented:
- Vodafone Hutchison Australia in the Federal Court in successful proceedings against the ACCC to secure clearance of the merger of Vodafone and TPG;
- Brookfield in obtaining ACCC authorisation of the proposed acquisition of Origin Energy; and
- Epic Games in proceedings against each of Apple and Google alleging anti-competitive conduct in certain digital markets.
Fiona is a former Chair of the Competition and Consumer Committee of the Law Council of Australia. She 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. In 2022 and 2023 she served as a member of the Financial Regulator Assessment Authority.
Fiona is a member of the board of the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI).
Mergers
Fiona acted in the ACCC clearances / authorisations in the following transactions:
- APNO: the acquisition by JC Decaux
- BcIMC: acquisition of a stake in Glencore Agriculture
- Brookfield: proposed acquisition of Origin Energy
- 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
- Hutchison: joint venture with Vodafone Australia
- 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 global arrangement involving its Upjohn Division and Mylan
- St. George Bank: merger with Westpac, the largest bank merger in Australia
- Veolia: acquisition of Suez
- Vodafone Hutchison Australia: in successful 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
- 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. This is the first big tech antitrust litigation in Australia and involved complex expert evidence from a range of disciplines, including technology, security, payments, antitrust economics, econometrics, behavioural economics and forensic accounting. It involved a 16-week trial (including two related class actions)
- Coles and Liquorland: successfully resolving Federal Court proceedings brought by the ACCC alleging anti-competitive conduct with Woolworths
- Coles and Liquorland: in High Court proceedings establishing that legal professional privilege applies to information produced in response to ACCC notices
- Pfizer: successfully defended highly publicised court proceedings commenced by the ACCC for alleged misuse of market power, both at trial and before appellate courts
- 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 and acted for a Major energy retailer in proceedings brought by regulators (AER & ESC) regarding retail energy regulation
- Esso: resolving the ACCC's publicly expressed concerns regarding the joint marketing arrangement between Esso and BHP for Gippsland Basin gas
- Royal Commission: advising an international bank on the Royal Commission into banks and financial institutions
- Telecoms: acted in numerous investigations and other ACCC enforcement action for participants in the telecoms industry on a range of industry issues.
Access
- Airports: regulatory access and competition adviser 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
- Infrastructure investors: advising on the access and other regulatory risk surrounding their acquisition of port, rail and other infrastructure assets
- Telecoms: conducting proceedings in the Australian Competition Tribunal on appeals from decisions of the ACCC regarding access pricing
- Port of Newcastle: in Federal Court proceedings commenced by the ACCC against NSW Ports regarding aspects of the privatisation of certain major port assets in Australia.