James is a Partner in our Melbourne office where he specialises in complex dispute resolution.
James has a broad commercial litigation practice, with a particular focus on consumer protection and regulatory litigation, technology related disputes, internal investigations, and large commercial disputes including class actions and disputes arising from transactions and major crises. James helps clients navigate sensitive and reputationally significant risks, including defamation claims and issues arising from regulatory investigations.
He is regularly retained to resolve disputes involving alleged breaches of contract; misleading or deceptive conduct and other contraventions of competition and consumer protection laws; misuse of confidential information and privacy invasions (particularly from cyber breaches); copyright and trademark infringement; and defamation.
James’s recent market leading work includes:
- Medibank: representing Medibank in Federal Court consumer class action proceedings, a civil penalty proceeding brought by the Australian Information Commissioner in the Federal Court, and a representative complaint before the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, and advising Medibank on other regulatory and legal risks, arising from the major cybercrime incident in which a malicious threat actor stole and released sensitive information on the dark web concerning current and former Medibank customers.
- BHP: representing two BHP subsidiaries, OS MCAP and OS ACPM, in a class action in the Federal Court where the claimants seek penalties and compensation on behalf of all continuous shift worker or Fly-In-Fly-Out employees who worked public holidays between 2019 and 2023 at BHP mine sites across Australia.
- United Petroleum: in a class action against United Petroleum Pty Ltd and United Petroleum Franchise Pty Ltd in the Victorian Supreme Court commenced on behalf of franchisees and commission agents, concerning alleged unconscionable and misleading conduct arising from the introduction of Pie Face into United petrol stations.
- REA Group: in Federal Court proceedings against Domain, where REA claimed Domain had engaged in copyright infringement and misleading conduct relating to data scraping from realestate.com.au
- Telstra in a range of disputes including: Federal Court proceedings commenced by the ACCC in relation to allegedly unconscionable sales practices; Federal Court litigation against Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney City Councils in relation to Telstra’s new digital payphones; and in a range of other contractual, advertising, competition and technology related disputes in the Federal and Supreme Courts.
- Samsung Australia (water resistance capabilities of Galaxy mobile phones), Kimberly-Clark Australia (“flushable wipes”) and Coles Supermarkets (“freshly baked bread”) in consumer protection proceedings commenced by the ACCC in the Federal Court.
- Confidential internal investigations for major corporate clients into sensitive and reputationally significant matters.
- Defamation: acting for a range of clients including a firm of partners, a CEO of a listed entity, and a prominent public official, in defamation claims.
Clients describe him as an “exceptional litigation lawyer”, a “technical expert” who provides “first-class support on a wide variety of complex and reputationally significant matters”, and someone who “consistently demonstrates an ability to look beyond the specific legal issue to the broader interests of our business”. He is regarded by clients as a “trusted advisor” and “reliable, down-to-earth and a good communicator”.
