About

Headed by Sean Hughes, a distinguished legal and regulatory compliance leader with deep experience in both specialties, Tabcorp’s legal and regulatory team comprises of 52 employees, of whom 29 are lawyers spread between Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and London. The team has received extensive praise from nominators for its expertise in introducing ground-breaking technical innovations that have a strong impact on the wider company. Recently, for example, the department developed an innovative product known as Contract Life Cycle Management System (CLMS), which streamlines and automates contracting processes throughout their lifecycle. ‘Historically, Tabcorp had disparate processes for the execution and management of its contracts across the business,’ Hughes explains. ‘Having identified an opportunity to improve our processes, the legal and regulatory team spent the past 12 months designing and working with software developers to build a cutting edge and high innovative system that is CLMS’. The system is expected to simplify and systematise what is ‘otherwise an administratively burdensome and manual component of working-life’, reducing the risk of missing key contractual obligations and rights’ milestones. The team has also gained recognition for its involvement in each key stream of the proposed acquisition of Tatts Group Limited, an extremely high profile corporate acquisition. Each member of the team currently plays a key role in six transactional work streams, namely: buy/sell, competition, finance, regulatory approvals, stakeholder engagement and integration, according to Hughes, ‘each of the work streams is managed by a pilot and co-pilot from the team, who are responsible for the execution of that work stream’. In addition to participating in this transaction, the legal team has also been central to the negotiation and tender processes for a large number of licence acquisitions and renewals over the years. These include the $410m AUD Wargering and Betting and the $ 60m AUD Keno Victorian licenses in 2012. ‘In a highly regulated environment, the acquisition and responsible management of operating licences is pivotal to Tabcorp’s success and sustainability,’ Hughes states. Other significant work for the team has included settlement of the AUSTRAC litigation, an agreement with News Corp and the launch of SunBets, the CrownBet litigation and the acquisition of Intecq Limited.