Clayton Utz went shopping in Perth and came back with a whole firm. It’s swallowed boutique Chord Advisory and its ex-HSF Kramer crew led by David Hugo and Jason Ricketts. After four partners exited the Perth office, it’s clearly filling desks fast, having already pinched three partners from Allens: Point Blank

⚖️ M&A: Brookfield’s scheme with Reliance Worldwide includes a rare four-week “go-shop” period. It lets the target actively solicit rival bids, hand over due diligence and negotiate alternatives after signing, which flips the usual Australian no-shop, no-talk playbook on its head. Brookfield still has a matching right and gets a US$25.3m break fee if Reliance walks. The go-shop may also have been the price of landing pre-bid exclusivity. Past results are mixed: KKR’s MYOB deal drew no rival bid, while Mainstream sparked a bidding war that lifted the price from $1.20 to $2.80 per share. Will go-shops become the new bargaining chip for targets that haven’t properly tested the market?: Ashurst Perkins Coie

⚖️ Employment: A Fair Work Commission Full Bench has ruled that a third party can seek to appeal an arbitrated workplace dispute, even when neither party appeals. Early childhood teacher Jeniza Aquino won a classification dispute against her employer. The Australian Childcare Alliance, a major employer body, sought permission to appeal. The Bench rejected Aquino’s objection: parties agreeing to FWC arbitration take the Commission as they find it, including s 604 appeals by any “person aggrieved” (unless the dispute clause limits them). The Alliance qualified as a sector-wide representative body whose members face a likely wave of underpayment claims: Fair Work Commission

⚖️ Litigation: Two recent decisions are a reminder that admissions and concessions are hard to walk back. In Target Australia v Smart Trike, the Federal Court refused the respondent’s bid to withdraw two admissions repeated across three versions of its defence. It hadn’t adequately explained how they were a mistake rather than a deliberate forensic choice. In Perez de la Sala v Perez de la Sala, the NSW Court of Appeal refused to let the applicant withdraw concessions made by senior counsel, which were express, repeated and unambiguous. It didn’t help that no explanation was offered for making them: HSF Kramer, Federal Court of Australia, NSW Court of Appeal

The Greens are now the party of lawyers. Former barrister David Shoebridge has replaced fellow lawyer Larissa Waters as leader, and five of the party’s 11 MPs worked in law before parliament. Across parliament, it’s a different story. Lawyers have dropped from 19.9% of MPs in 2019 to 10.2%, overtaken by political staffers (15.9%) and union officials (11.9%): Capital Brief

Your coffee prices are going up. Since 1 October, businesses can no longer add a surcharge when you pay by card, which used to cost Aussies about $1.6bn a year. But banks still charge them processing fees, so cafes and restaurants are lifting menu prices to cover it. The RBA says the impact will be small — about 0.1%: AFR

⚡ GIC has tapped JPMorgan to prep a bid for Rio Tinto’s ~$7bn sale of its Pilbara and Canadian power infrastructure. Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund joins a crowded field: IFM, KKR, GIP and Ares are all circling: AFR

🇺🇸 Firmus is eyeing a Nasdaq dual listing, with CFO Kirsty Godfrey-Billy telling investors it’s “certainly something” on the table. The AI infrastructure play is also weighing a US$500m upsize to its US$5bn raise ahead of Thursday’s bookbuild: AFR

💵 Swipejobs has pitched its $2bn IPO to fund managers, reporting $753m revenue for the half to June. But investors aren’t sure how to value it. It’s selling itself as an AI business, but they see a labour hire firm. BofA, UBS and Barrenjoey are on the float: AFR