Thomson Geer

The firm: Thomson Geer is a major Australian corporate law firm. The firm has more than 600 people, including over 140 partners operating out of our offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra.

By size Thomson Geer is one of the 10 largest law firms operating in Australia, and the fifth largest independent Australian law firm.

The firm’s origins date back to 1885.

At Thomson Geer we focus on:

• delivering best practice legal skills and know-how to situations, transactions and disputes that require external legal counsel;
• ensuring that the above delivery is made with a deep appreciation of, and in response to, the commercial context; and
• maintaining cultural and operational standards and price settings across all our partners and professionals that ensure the right balance between value and cost flows to our clients.

This combines to form a service and quality style that is focused on enhancing the competitive position of our clients in whatever circumstances they find themselves in.

Supplementing the above is of course a deep moral code amongst all our people that requires the maintenance of the highest ethical standards and honesty in everything we do.

Our partnership fosters an open and transparent culture, which keeps our lawyers motivated and engaged. We are experts at cross-disciplinary collaboration – our partners and lawyers want to work with other offices and across areas of specialisation – which helps us properly resource matters and provide our clients with the expertise they need.

TG Public Affairs: Our affiliate TG Public Affairs provides first class, tri-partisan public affairs advice to both domestic and offshore clients. By utilising its extensive networks, TG Public Affairs ensures the priorities of clients are clearly understood within Australia’s parliaments and bureaucracies, and has a reputation for providing sound policy advice and designing effective advocacy strategies. TG Public Affairs is regularly retained by clients wishing to understand the political and regulatory environment in Australia, or those seeking advice on matters involving the Foreign Investment Review Board, Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade and other government agencies.

Our work: The nature of its legal assignments is what you would expect of a large corporate law firm. Thomson Geer is regularly engaged in challenging and complex work.

Recent examples of our work include advising:

• Japanese food and beverage giant Kirin Holdings Company, Limited on its A$1.8bn acquisition of Australian healthcare company Blackmores.
• The Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation on the establishment of a renewable energy project partnership in Western Australia with ACEN Corp worth more than A$1bn.
• Represented many of Australia’s largest and prominent media organisations and identities in a contempt of court matter related to reporting of the conviction of Cardinal George Pell of child sex offences. The convictions were quashed on appeal.
• Acted on the US$172.5m US venture capital backed investment into Australian technology company Octopus Deploy, described as the second-largest ever venture capital investment in an Australian tech company.
• Advised Resolute Mining on the sale of its Bibiani gold mine to Chijin International for US$105m.
• Acted for German company Dr August Wolff in trade mark dispute with American company Combe International as Dr August Wolff sought to register its product Vagisan.
• Successfully acted for Civil Mining & Construction Pty Ltd in dispute with Wiggins Island Coal Export Terminal Pty Ltd over variations and delays in the project.
• Advised renewable energy fund SunBot on a two year technology finance and prototype development project with the Stanhope Solar Farm.
• Advised leading Australian online local services marketplace, Airtasker on its A$83.7m initial public offering and application to debut on to the ASX.
• Acted for pension fund Intrust Super on its merger with larger fund Hostplus.
• Advised one of Australia’s most acclaimed film special effects companies, Rising Sun Pictures on its acquisition by US based visual effects company, FuseFX.