It’s a great time to be a lateral, and a not-so-great time to be a grad. New SurePoint data shows AmLaw 200 entry-level hiring has flatlined for four years, even as firms banked tens of billions extra in revenue. Laterals outnumbered fresh grads for the third time in five years. Australia's telling the same story. Earlier this year, Minters blamed AI as the reason for cutting its grad cohort by a third: Point Blank

⚖️ Regulatory: ASIC has posted its biggest enforcement haul on record for FY2025‑26. The regulator scored $830m in civil penalties ordered by courts and $644m in remediation, refunds and compensation delivered back to affected customers and investors. Big-ticket penalties include a record $300m against Union Standard for CFD misconduct, $35m each against HSBC and Macquarie Securities, $26m against Westpac for hardship failures, and $10.3m against Mercer Super for reporting failures. ASIC also launched over 250 investigations and recorded 25 criminal convictions, 21 of them custodial. Chair Sarah Court says the focus is on misconduct causing real harm, from scams to super to digital assets: ASIC

⚖️ M&A: In the Magnetic Resources scheme with Genesis Minerals, the WA Supreme Court gave holders of nil paid "contributing shares" a full vote each, even though the constitution stripped them of voting rights at general meetings. Justice Hill found nil paid holders formed a single class with fully paid holders, pointing to s 411(4)(a)(ii) of the Corporations Act. Section 411(4)(a)(ii) requires all members at a scheme meeting to vote on the arrangement even if they would have no vote at a general meeting. It's a departure from the usual approach (seen the same week in the Hartshead scheme) of giving partly paid holders proportionate votes only: Ashurst Perkins Coie

⚖️ Privacy: An American Express employee accessed an ex-partner's account to view their travel bookings, rewards and financial transactions, purely out of personal curiosity. AMEX couldn't even confirm how many times, because account-level logging wasn't switched on across the board. The Privacy Commissioner found that despite role-based access, training and monitoring, AMEX breached APP 11.1 since its controls weren't proportionate to the risk. For SOCI and APRA-regulated entities too, the Commissioner wants uniform account-level logging, just-in-time access and express bans on staff accessing friends' and family's accounts: Gilbert + Tobin

Building careers that go everywhere. Always. 

As a Mallesons Seasonal Clerk, you'll work alongside Tier 1 lawyers on the matters shaping the future - from market-defining deals and complex disputes to the energy transition and digital economy - while exploring different practice areas and industries across the firm.   

Through exposure to a breadth of work and exceptional colleagues invested in your growth, you'll discover what interests you most, broaden your perspective and sharpen your edge. It's a foundation for a career with opportunities that extend across teams, sectors and offices.   

Applications are still open in Melbourne and Brisbane, with Perth closing soon. 

Apply today.

Vic Premier Jacinta Allan wants Victoria to have the toughest workplace surveillance laws in the country: 14 days' notice before employers roll out new monitoring, no covert surveillance unless for safety purposes, and a crackdown on AI bias in hiring. The move comes after one Victorian company secretly recorded staff through their laptops, and then sacked them for complaining: AFR

Trump's vowing Iran will "pay many times over" after three US soldiers died, with US strikes now in their tenth straight day. Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen are threatening to blockade Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, while Brent crude's already climbed to US$89.22 a barrel: Bloomberg

📈 Mallesons has claimed the value crown in Mergermarket's 1H26 Australasia league tables, posting $55.5bn across 46 deals, up 109.3% year-on-year. HSF Kramer took out deal count with 52 deals. Australasian M&A hit $101.6bn across just 475 deals, down from 622 a year earlier: Point Blank

💻 Point Wild, the Boston-based cybersecurity outfit, has mandated Goldman Sachs to prep an ASX IPO that could land as early as this year. Talk is of a $500m raise at a valuation well north of its private markets price tag of $2.9bn: AFR

⚒️ EQ Resources shares jumped 25% after Andrew Forrest snapped up a 16.8% stake for $190m via his private investment vehicle, buying out Oaktree Capital's holding. The Fortescue chairman is betting on tungsten's tight supply chain: Capital Brief