Lawyers Weekly's Legal Firm of Choice Survey has landed, and 21% of private practice lawyers are eyeing the exit within 12 months. 40 to 49 year-olds have become the most restless cohort, up 14 percentage points from last year, while in-house roles are now the hottest ticket out, more than doubling in appeal since 2025: Point Blank

⚖️ Regulatory: ASIC is on track to smash its own record, set to secure over $800m in civil penalties this financial year, roughly four times last year's haul. The $300.2m win against collapsed CFD issuer Union Standard International Group alone eclipsed the previous annual record. Other scalps include $250m from ANZ, $35m from HSBC over scam failures, and $23.5m from Cbus. These penalties don't top up ASIC's own budget — they go straight into the government's consolidated revenue fund for general spending. Criminal referrals tell a different story, with just 14 charges laid this year, the second lowest in 11 years: Capital Brief

⚖️ Insolvency: Twenty-two creditors owed money by FT Sydney tried to stop a DOCA from taking effect before a final hearing. They wanted the chance to argue the administration was invalid, get the DOCA terminated or varied, and claim an equitable lien over the properties — options that would disappear once the DOCA took effect. The Federal Court still refused interlocutory relief. The sticking point was their flat refusal to give an undertaking as to damages, a promise to cover the other side's losses if the relief was wrongly granted. Justice Shariff found that hard to reconcile with the creditors’ own claim that the risk to other parties was low. If the risk was genuinely low, the undertaking should have been easy to give: Corrs Chambers Westgarth

⚖️ Private Equity: The ACCC's new FAQ guidance on notification waivers asks private equity funds for more than the prescribed form strictly requires. Applicants must map overlapping portfolio companies across every fund strategy the manager runs, not just the acquiring fund, disclose PE investors who'll have post-acquisition influence, and substantiate any 'connected entity' exclusions with actual reasoning rather than a bare assertion. Trouble is, PE fund structures involving trusts, partnerships and management layers rarely map neatly onto Corporations Act 'control' concepts, so justifying an exclusion can mean edging close to revealing the privileged legal advice behind it: HSF Kramer

Labor's gambling reform bill will ban all influencers and sports stars from promoting betting online for payment, targeting Benny Scarf, Billy Gowers and sponsored podcasts like The Karl Stefanovic Podcast. Under the draft laws, gambling ads will be restricted to three per hour but can still run after 8.30pm, radio ads banned around school pick-up and drop-off times, and online ads blocked for under-18s: AFR

Trump's big swing at birthright citizenship just got smashed 6-3 by his own Supreme Court. He wanted to strip citizenship from kids born in the US unless a parent's a citizen or green-card holder, roughly 250,000 babies a year. Trump argued the 14th Amendment's citizenship guarantee was only ever meant for freed slaves' children, but Chief Justice Roberts rejected that, confirming it covers everyone born on US soil: Bloomberg

🛒 The ACCC has knocked back Coles' bid for a Kalgoorlie supermarket and liquor site, finding the deal would likely "substantially" lessen grocery competition in the WA mining town. The regulator says it would lead to the exit of an independent rival and new entrants too slow to fill the gap: Capital Brief

📈 Magellan Financial Group shares jumped almost 12% to $10.84 after formally completing its merger with Barrenjoey. The entity will rebrand as Barrenjoey and switch its ASX ticker from MFG to BJY, running three arms: investment management, financial markets and corporate finance: Capital Brief

🐾 Coles is deep in talks to snap up TPG's Greencross for around $4bn, weeks after the private equity giant shelved a float of the pets and vets business. Goldman Sachs and HSF Kramer advise Coles. Jarden and Gilbert + Tobin are on TPG's side: AFR