Experience: |
Catherine joined Hunt & Hunt in 2002 and jointly heads a team in our Sydney Commercial and Property group, working daily on commercial matters. Catherine has over 24 years experience practising in corporate and commercial law, mainly in the areas listed above. She has acted for large and small, listed and unlisted public companies, global companies, family businesses, partnerships and joint ventures, government and non-government organisations, sporting and charitable and non-profit organisations. She has been a preferred legal counsel for one of this country’s largest private health insurers for nearly 20 years. Catherine is concerned with environmental issues and is the honorary general counsel for Clean Up Australia. She is also the company secretary and honorary general counsel for the Financial Markets Foundation for Children, a charity that is supported by all the major banks and chaired by the Governor of the Reserve Bank. Catherine's approach to advising, and towards structuring, documentation, negotiation and action delivers favourable results, and avoidance of unwanted publicity and litigation for her clients. Her experience includes: Intellectual property (IP) examples - negotiating resolutions to numerous IP related disputes, including trade mark, domain name, character merchandising, endorsement, copyright and meta tagging disputes;
- drafting and negotiating all kinds of IP licensing agreements, for both licensees and licensors, including ICT related licences (both off and on line), trade mark licences and endorsement agreements;
- pre-launch commercial advice, including drafting website and regular terms and conditions and privacy policies, and advice on Australian law and policy, and IP protection and branding including domain name registrations;
- advising on the development of the common law in relation to the ownership of IP assets and drafting express non-compete, IP and confidential information clauses for employment contracts;
- auditing and advising clients on maximising value of IP assets;
- trade mark and trading name advice and registrations; and
- advising collaborators on collaboration agreements for research projects.
Other examples - advising clients on restrictive trade practices issues;
- advising clients on consumer trade practices issues including wording for advertising, promotions and brochures;
- providing restructuring advice including drafting corporate constitutions, and advice on change strategy and governance;
- acting in matters involving offshore parties, particularly in the US, and development of documents that meet the legal and cultural requirements of both legal systems;
- advice on global acquisitions, concerning the Australian assets;
- preparation of joint venture documentation including shareholders' agreements;
- drafting and advising on all types of property leasing arrangements, including for wind farm projects and retail, commercial and industrial leases and licences;
- drafting and advising on information technology agreements and electronic trading partner agreements;
- preparation of tender documents for the sale of state owned businesses and land;
- policy advice to clients on areas such as privacy, customer relations, and provider networks;
- operational advice to clients on settling customer disputes; and
- regulatory and compliance advice in a range of industries, often involving statutory interpretation.
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