Patrick Gay is a parter with Herbert Smith Freehills in their Sydney office. Patrick has significant experience across all areas of competition law, including distribution arrangements, cartel arrangements and merger matters. Patrick has extensive experience across all aspects of Australian competition law and advises clients in relation to cartels, authorisation applications, market investigations and the structuring of commercial agreements and joint ventures. He has significant experience in contentious merger matters before the ACCC and the Australian Competition Tribunal, as well as acting for clients with matters before the Federal Court. Patrick also advises on issues under the Australian Consumer Law. Patrick holds a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University, Montreal, and a Bachelor of Laws and a Master of Public Administration from Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia. Patrick has acted as a legal affairs officer at the World Trade Organization in Geneva Switzerland and was previously an associate in the competition and international trade law departments of a major Canadian firm.
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The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has proposed radical changes to the way mergers are regulated in Australia recommending the introduction of a mandatory and suspensory merger review process with limited merits review by the Australian Competition Tribunal. Key (...)
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The Full Federal Court has dismissed the ACCC’s appeal in respect of its case against Pacific National and Aurizon. In dismissing the ACCC’s appeal, the Full Federal Court confirmed the test to be applied when assessing whether a firm’s conduct will be likely to have the effect of (...)
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On 13 February 2020, the Federal Court of Australia declared that the proposed merger between TPG Telecom Limited (TPG) and Vodafone Hutchison Australia (Vodafone) would not have the likely effect of substantially lessening competition in the retail mobile market, and therefore would not (...)
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On 27 June 2019, the ACCC announced that it has lodged an appeal to the Full Federal Court against the Federal Court’s decision. The ACCC stated that its appeal will focus on the ability of courts to accept undertakings given the ACCC’s concerns about the ability of access undertakings to (...)
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Competition and anti-competitive behaviour in financial services is a continuing focus of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and competition regulators worldwide. The European Commission, on 5 April 2019, published a long-awaited thematic review on loan syndication and (...)
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On 13 February 2019 the Federal Court ordered Cryosite Limited to pay $1.05 million in penalties for engaging in ‘gun jumping’ cartel conduct in its asset sale agreement with Cell Care Australia. The modest fine reflected the (relatively small) scale of the business concerned and their (...)
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The Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia has dismissed an appeal by the ACCC against an earlier judgment in relation to pharmaceutical company Pfizer. While the Full Court upheld the single judge decision that Pfizer had not misused its market power or engaged in prohibited (...)
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On 13 December 2017, the $11 billion merger between Tabcorp Holdings Ltd (Tabcorp) and Tatts Group Ltd (Tatts) became effective upon Supreme Court approval. Final implementation is scheduled to occur today in what has been one of the longest-running transactions in recent Australian corporate (...)
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CrownBet and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) have confirmed that they will not be seeking judicial review of the Australian Competition Tribunal’s authorisation of Tabcorp Holdings Limited’s (Tabcorp’s) acquisition of Tatts Group Limited (Tatts), paving the way for (...)
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The Australian Competition Tribunal has now published its reasons for granting authorisation to Tabcorp Holdings Limited to acquire Tatts (see our original legal briefing here). Herbert Smith Freehills acted for Tabcorp in its successful merger authorisation application. To authorise the (...)
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Significant amendments have been made to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) with the passage of the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Competition Policy Review) Bill 2017 (Cth) today. While these amendments have been long in the making and follow the recommendations of the Harper (...)
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The Federal Court has found against the ACCC in considering changes to Medibank’s coverage for certain out-of-pocket expenses and related representations made in various Medibank documents. In rejecting the ACCC’s contentions, the Court undertook a detailed and careful analysis of Medibank’s (...)
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The Competition and Consumer Amendment (Misuse of Market Power) Bill 2017 was passed by both houses of parliament on 15 August 2017, introducing a new misuse of market power prohibition under section 46 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. The changes to section 46 are significant, (...)
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On Tuesday the Australian Competition Tribunal gave Tabcorp Holdings Limited (Tabcorp), represented by Herbert Smith Freehills, the green light to proceed with its $11 billion merger with Tatts after the granting authorisation to acquire shares in Tatts Group Limited as set out in their Merger (...)
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On 14 June 2017, the High Court of Australia unanimously dismissed the appeals by each airline in Air New Zealand Ltd v Australian Competition and Consumer Commission; PT Garuda Indonesia Ltd v Australian Competition and Consumer Commission [2017] HCA 21. The High Court found that price fixing (...)
