Government Commercial

Supporting clients to navigate the complexities of government commercial, process and governance decision-making to ensure strong and defensible business outcomes.

Our national Government Commercial team delivers expert advice to Commonwealth, State and Local Government, as well as corporatised entities, universities and other public bodies— from the most complex and high-value projects to routine business.

We focus on advising public sector entities on their commercial activities, so our team maintains constant awareness of changes in legislation and policies impacting these activities and apply lessons learned across agencies, entities and jurisdictions to promote better practice.

Our expertise covers:

Procurement

• Contract law – drafting, negotiating, managing and enforcing contracts, both on a standalone basis and as part of a procurement process, including supporting and/or attending contract negotiations and facilitating contract execution.
• Procurement process – advising on procurement and legal process design and evaluation methodologies, reviewing and drafting procurement documentation
• ICT – advising on complex end-to-end acquisitions for government clients involving managed services, system integration, software (on premise and cloud), hardware (including leasing) and other services. Also advising on related legal issues including generative artificial intelligence (AI), e-commerce, encryption, data management and protection, online security, spam, social media, digital technology, SaaS, cloud computing and defamation.

Corporate Advisory

• Corporate Governance – advising on the ongoing governance compliance and decision-making of departments of state, corporate bodies and public companies.
• Board advisory – Advising (and providing education) on the duties, powers and functions of statutory office holders and statutory boards and the duties of directors’ and officers of government owned corporations, including indemnities, insurance and risk mitigation and integrity issues such as conflicts of interest and protected disclosures
• Corporate transactions – advising on the establishment, re-constitution, acquisition and privatisation of public bodies and their financing.
• Financial arrangements – advising agencies on contestability, reinsurance, grants and financial underwriting arrangements which seek to advance policy objectives through engagement of the market by the public sector.
• Assets and Intellectual Property – advising on the creation, management and commercialisation of public assets, including intellectual property holdings, particularly in the scientific and education sectors.

Governance

• Statutory interpretation and legislation development – we advise on the meaning and impact of legislation on the business of government and assist in the development of subordinate legislation, including statutory instruments, that relate.
• Inter-government arrangements – inter and intragovernmental arrangements and MoUs to achieve operational objectives in a manner consistent with legislative requirements.
• Probity – advising on procurement, grant, divestment and other processes, conflict-of-interest management, including for expert advisory committees, and providing training and briefings to decision makers.
• Reviews and investigations – undertaking reviews of organisational structure and operation of agencies as well as investigations into specific procurement, grant, divestment or corporate decisions, often involving alleged integrity issues.

The government clients we work with also have access to the broader resources of our firm which includes subject matter expertise across administrative law, employment, WHS, insurance, banking and finance, construction, property, planning and environment, intellectual property and dispute resolution. Our multi-disciplinary capability enables us to provide end to end support to projects, and provide responsive advice on any niche issues