Inside Australia’s biggest M&A deal

Woodside boosts US LNG investment

Romances keep toppling global executives

Afterpay’s $39bn merger with Block (formerly Square) remains the largest public M&A in Aussie history. G+T’s Peter Cook and Rachael Bassil led for Afterpay, alongside Cravath in the US. KWM’s David Friedlander, Nicola Charlston and Anthony Boogert steered Square with Wachtell. From a Hawaii summit to an 11-week sprint, here’s how it played out.

In an Australian first, a Victorian solicitor has been penalised for submitting fake AI-generated case citations to the Federal Circuit and Family Court. The lawyer admitted he didn’t verify the citations produced by legal software, offered an apology, and has now been barred from practising as a principal. He’ll serve two years under supervision amid growing regulatory scrutiny of AI misuse in court: Guardian

New data shows 80% of corporate and finance partner hires at UK law firms since 2019 were men, despite female representation across other practice areas steadily rising. Recruiters say men often overstate client books, while lifestyle barriers and lack of inclusive networking push women away from top-paying, high-hour roles in PE and M&A: Financial Times

The Federal Court has awarded a record $305k to a Mad Mex worker after finding she was sexually harassed and victimised by her manager. It’s the first test of the 2022 Respect@Work reforms, which ban “sex-based harassment” – unwelcome, demeaning conduct directed to a person based on their sex that a reasonable person would see as offensive, humiliating or intimidating, even if it’s not necessarily sexual in nature. The Court ruled sexist remarks about others weren’t directed at the complainant, but repeated sexual comments, explicit images, and threats of defamation clearly were. The payout is the highest ever in an Australian sexual harassment claim: Allens

ASIC chair Joe Longo has warned that Australia’s Corporations Act, now more than 4000 pages and 800,000 words (longer than War and Peace), is stifling growth through complexity. He said endless amendments have turned parts of the Act into “porridge”, raising compliance costs and slowing innovation. Longo urged the re-establishment of the Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee to drive reform. The ASIC chair also criticised government inaction on the ALRC’s 58 recommendations, which included consolidating offences and drafting guidelines. ASIC has already culled 9,240 pages of regulation this year, but Longo says a dedicated taskforce is needed to cut down the red tape: AFR

HSF Kramer makes the case for breaking the 1% break fee barrier. The 1% break fee guideline has held sway for 24 years, but recent cases show courts may tolerate departures where fees aren’t anti-competitive or coercive. The NSW Supreme Court raised eyebrows at a two-tiered fee but hinted it could be justified if bidders came armed with hard evidence of costs. In WA, Justice Strk okayed a 2.3% fee where the target’s low equity value meant the amount wasn’t excessive and costs could reasonably be absorbed by a rival bidder. Looks like innovation in break fees won’t be rejected out of hand, but anything above 1% will attract scrutiny. Parties need to prove the quantum, structure, and triggers strike a fair balance between protecting bidder costs and preserving competition: HSF Kramer

Labor moves to curb FOI access. The Albo gov has introduced a bill to allow blanket refusals for freedom of information requests taking more than 40 hours to process, expand exemptions for cabinet papers, and introduce fees for non-personal requests. Critics, including the Coalition and Greens, branded it a “truth tax”: ABC News

Cozzie livs is hitting hard - the $22 pint is coming. Francis Venues head Tom Francis says soaring food and energy costs are pushing pint prices towards $22. Some venues already charge close to $19. While pubs welcome the government’s two-year freeze on beer excise, owners warn constant supplier hikes mean punters should brace for even pricier pints: AFR

Love is still tripping up the C-suite. Nestlé boss Laurent Freixe is the latest CEO toppled for an undisclosed romance with a subordinate, joining Astronomer’s Andy Byron (busted on a Coldplay kiss cam) and Kohl’s Ashley Buchanan. It raises the question of whether corporate alarm systems are working. History suggests not: a study of 219 executive misdeeds from 1978 to 2012 found nearly half involved sexual indiscretions, with CEO scandals alone costing shareholders an average $226m: AFR

OpenAI: is set to buy product-testing startup Statsig in a $1.7bn all-stock deal, one of its biggest acquisitions yet. Founded in 2021, Statsig builds A/B testing tools used by software developers at the likes of Eventbrite and SoundCloud to test new features. Statsig CEO Vijaye Raji will become OpenAI’s CTO of applications, as the company bolsters its apps division: Capital Brief

Blackstone: is testing buyer appetite for AirTrunk’s SYD1 data centre, a 130MW hyperscale hub in Sydney’s west cleared for gov clients. Early deal docs are due within weeks. It’s AirTrunk’s first move since Blackstone and CPP paid $24bn last year in the world’s biggest data centre deal: AFR

Advent International: has struck its first Aussie deal under new local boss Beau Dixon, agreeing to buy Automic Group in a $725m transaction. Automic, a cloud-native disruptor to Computershare and Link, handles registry and governance for 1400+ clients and has become the go-to for IPOs like GY. Allens advised Advent and G+T repped Automic: AFR

Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill says the US remains a prime investment destination thanks to low taxes and strong government support for energy. It’s spending big on LNG in Louisiana, ammonia in Texas and oil in the Gulf of Mexico, with revenue set to split 50-50 between Aus and North America by 2031. O’Neill insists the company will stay “proudly Australian”: AFR

The government has approved an expansion of Glencore’s Ulan thermal coal mine, allowing an extra 18.8m tonnes to be mined and extending operations to 2035. The move has sparked backlash from the Climate Council and Greens, who say it undermines Australia’s emissions goals as it bids to host the UN climate summit: Mining Weekly

CBA worker Kathryn Sullivan, sacked after 25 years at the bank, says she was effectively training the Bumblebee chatbot that replaced her role. In July, CBA cut 45 call centre jobs, citing AI reducing calls by 2000 a week. But after the FSU challenged the cuts, CBA backflipped and offered jobs back. Unions now want laws forcing consultation before AI-driven job cuts: AFR

ANZ is overhauling its risk structure. Data and tech chief risk officer Michelle Pinheiro will depart this month, while roles are being split and compliance centralised under group chief risk officer Kevin Corbally. The revamp comes as ANZ faces an ASIC bond market probe, an APRA enforceable undertaking, and up to 7 separate ASIC matters: Capital Brief

Wesfarmers has sold six Bunnings stores to Charter Hall for $290m, locking in yields just above 5%. The deal, covering sites in NSW, Queensland and Melbourne, delivered a $97m pre-tax profit. Charter Hall now controls over $2.5bn in Bunnings assets, with analysts tipping more sales could follow: The Australian

Melbourne is re-emerging as a buy for private investors. The city is now the cheapest on the east coast, with a median dwelling price of $803k — well below Brisbane ($950k) and Sydney. Developers like Nigel Satterley and valuers such as Greville Pabst say Melbourne is “grossly undervalued”: AFR

A federal judge has ruled Google won’t be forced to sell Chrome or Android, despite finding last year it held an illegal monopoly in search. Judge Amit Mehta instead barred Google from exclusive contracts tied to Search, Chrome, Assistant and Gemini, and ordered it to share search data with rivals. Alphabet shares jumped 6% on the news: Capital Brief

Airwallex co-founder Lucy Liu says the fintech is developing an AI-powered CFO to give small businesses real-time financial insights once reserved for corporates. The digital CFO will use agentic AI to handle everything from compliance to payments and strategy, replacing manual processes: The Australian