
👋 G’day
Today’s brief:
A&O’s new HQ has GPs and pilates
One in seven new CEOs are women
Energy partner joins Dentons in Bris
Here’s your latest, PB #{{join_number}} 👇
WORD ON THE STREET
Office upgrade

A&O Shearman is ditching its London home of 20 years for 2 Broadgate, kitted out with an on-site GP, reformer Pilates, nutrition advice and a balcony on every floor. Its 1,800 staff get eight floors, while clients score a floor of their own. It even built a mock floor in its old office to test the layout for 18 months: Legal Cheek, NB
Chartered Accountants ANZ reviewed KPMG’s systems after its audit scandal and found “no significant deficiencies”. When critics piled on, the accounting body pointed the finger at ASIC, calling the regulator “toothless”. Greens Senator Barbara Pocock wasn’t buying it, slamming CA ANZ as a lobby group for big firm: Capital Brief
Dentons wants a bigger slice of the energy transition pie, and it’s poached from DLA Piper’s Brissy office to get it. New partner Jack Brumpton brings LNG, offshore wind, hydrogen and carbon markets expertise, plus an in-house stint at SunCable on the Australia-Asia PowerLink: Point Blank
PRACTICE POINTS
$2m insurer penalty
⚖️ Regulatory: Hollard has been hit with a $2m penalty in the first civil penalty ordered against an insurer for breaching the duty of utmost good faith under s 13(2A) of the Insurance Contracts Act. After a 2021 storm damaged a regional Victorian family’s roof, Hollard accepted the claim, then sat on it for 15 months before rejecting it. Meanwhile, mould and moisture left the home uninhabitable. It offered a $1k goodwill payment, before eventually paying out $1.55m. Button J said the family were “given the runaround”, and the delays couldn’t be blamed on staff busyness: ASIC
⚖️ Construction: Contractors chasing lost profits after termination need to open the books. In Atlanta Building v Abela, the NSW Court of Appeal rejected a builder’s claim for a 15% profit margin. The builder said it usually made 15% on its jobs, and its expert said industry margins sit between 10% and 20%, so 15% was a fair middle ground. Neither showed what profit it would have made on this particular contract. The builder could have used its costing records and tender estimates. Courts can go easy on claimants when proof is genuinely hard to get, but not when they simply didn’t produce evidence they had: Clyde & Co, NSW Supreme Court
⚖️ Competition/M&A: The ACCC has released a fact sheet explaining how it’ll enforce the mandatory merger notification regime against parties who close deals without telling it. Failing to notify a deal that meets the thresholds can lead to Federal Court orders for penalties, divestiture, director disqualification or voiding the acquisition entirely. The ACCC has broad discretion and will weigh factors including deal size, the reasons for not notifying and whether there was genuine uncertainty. But don’t expect leniency if you’re a large, well-resourced corporate or buying a close competitor: ACCC
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TALKING POINTS
CEO gender gap

Did you hear…
Gender equity at the top is going backwards. Chief Executive Women’s annual census found just one in seven new ASX 200 CEO appointments went to women this year, down from one in four in 2025. Women’s share of ASX 200 executive team roles also fell for the first time in a decade: AFR
Also…
New Greens leader David Shoebridge says his party won’t be bought off with “shiny baubles” anymore. He accuses Labor of taking on progressive causes and then abandoning them, and says the Greens want to replace Labor altogether. That’s a problem for Albo, who needs Greens votes in the Senate to pass a digital duty of care and a 30% minimum tax on discretionary trusts: Capital Brief
DEAL ROOM
ASX debuts
⛏️ Glencore is officially Down Under, with the FTSE 100 miner’s secondary listing via CDIs starting trading today. Mallesons advised Glencore, led by David Eliakim and Paul Schroder: Point Blank
💵 Wiluna has covered its $180m IPO book a day early, albeit priced at 65c, the bottom of its 65c to 85c range. The gold miner relists by 22 October at a $472m market cap, the ASX’s third-biggest gold float: The Australian
💾 AirTrunk has delayed its US$1.5bn Singapore REIT listing until early next year, citing interest rate uncertainty and market volatility. Even floating a 6% yield couldn’t win over investors spooked by the prospect of further rate hikes: Capital Brief
SECTOR SNAPSHOT
Pay pact

01 — 🚜 RESOURCES
Gold Fields is open to sweetening the cash in its spurned $38.7bn bid for Northern Star and would add an ASX secondary listing. If the deal lands, it may sell some Northern Star mines to rivals like Genesis Minerals, keeping the Super Pit, Pogo and Hemi: AFR
02 — 🏦 FINANCE
CBA has ended a six-month stand-off with the Finance Sector Union, agreeing to pay rises of up to 13% over three years for its 35,000 staff. The deal also creates an AI committee to consult workers on tech-driven job changes. The union says it’s now the benchmark for NAB, ANZ and Westpac negotiations: AFR
03 — 🏠 RETAIL & PROPERTY
Australia Post has listed two Sydney delivery centres in Alexandria and Minchinbury, expected to fetch over $320m, pushing its property sales past $700m. It’s a sale and leaseback, so AusPost stays on, paying $17.6m a year in rent: The Australian
04 — 📱 TECH & STARTUPS
A parliamentary AI inquiry wants a slice of data centre compute reserved for the national interest, and Anthropic is open to it. The company says it would set aside capacity, “within bounds”, for government priorities like healthcare: AFR
Until next time,
- Team PB
P.S.


