Slater + Gordon overhauls to overcome losses, while ACCC's Rod Sims overlooks a win: Hearsay

Katie Walsh and David Marin-Guzman

Updated Aug 11, 2017 – 2.06pm, first published at Aug 10, 2017 – 11.00pm

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The latest Slater & Gordon scuttlebutt has the firm facing a severe cut in shared services staff – HR, public relations, logistical and compliance support; in other words, those who really run the shop (in case you thought it was the hedge funds).

That's from rumours being carried around Melbourne on the wild winds. Fears swirling around a brain drain were also fed by the apparent resignation of industrial relations senior associate Brad Annson, who has been with the firm for almost a decade. A Slaters spokeswoman would not comment on Annson, but on shared services cuts in the range of 25 to 50 per cent she delivered an outright: "No".

"We are going through a budgeting and strategic planning process and analysing our future performance expectations," she says.

ACCC boss Rod Sims overlooks an old win against Boral. To be fair, it is hidden among merger losses.

"That review is incomplete and no decision has been made about any organisational change concerning our shared services group."

The exodus of leading lawyers of late has included national industrial relations head Marcus Clayton (with him, a key relationship with the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union), head of medical negligence Nicholas Mann, general law leader James Higgins and group litigation head Ben Phi(whose firm, started with fellow class actions experts Tim Finney and Odette McDonald and creatively titled Phi Finney McDonald, officially launched last week).

But just as Norton Rose Fulbright were quick to point out this week, doors revolve in both directions (heading out: Chris Redden, Ellen Thomas, and Pinsent Masons defectees Adrienne Parker, Matthew Croagh, Bill Ryan, Rob Buchanan; in and up: Baker McKenzie's Martin Irwin, HSBC's Adam Edelman, the firm's own Raymond Lou).

Slaters has revamped its industrial relations team, poaching Electrical Trades Union in-house lawyer Geoff Borenstein to become practice group leader, while firm stalwarts Phil Pasfield and Mick Sayers move up to national industrial practice leader and principal lawyer, respectively. Borenstein's dad, Herman, set up the firm's industrial practice in the 1970s and is now a leading silk in the area. A revival of the Slaters "family" tradition?

The firm is said to be undergoing a strategic refocus, highlighting traditional strength areas like personal injury and downplaying class actions.

A case of Russian dolls

Which is a shame, because there is a rich seam of literary flourish in the transcripts and rulings emanating from that space. Not from final judgments, of course; rather, the interlocutory versions exhausting the courts.

The highlight this week came from Federal Court judge Michael Lee, dismissing an interlocutory application in an investor class action against the Royal Bank of Scotland, which Shine Lawyers argues is a "linked credit provider" to the now-collapsed advisory company of Penrith-based financial planner Steve Navra.

Our class actions regime has reached its "silver anniversary", he noted, but even having matured from a "turbulent infancy [of] procedural disputation", those interlocutory squabbles still niggle at the courts.

Needless to say, he refused relief. Still, Justice Lee did make an order relating to a sample group member claim — the need for it was, he said, "plain as a pikestaff".

How medieval. Or, perhaps, modern: is somebody tuned into the latest Game of Thrones series?

Honours last month went to his peer judge Nye Perram in the class action brought against Ford Motor Company over allegedly defective transmission in certain cars — yes, in another niggling procedural matter.

The judge described the plaintiff's application as "like a Russian doll ... now an interlocutory application secreted within several other interlocutory applications".

A Russian doll, just like the one that appeared on the cover of the class actions review compiled by King & Wood Mallesons partners Moira Savill and Peta Stevenson et al last year.

A clever coincidence, or perhaps a sign the good judge might benefit from a more leisurely activity when switching off than reading undoubtedly brilliant legal insights from law firms... a Game of Thrones episode or two, possibly.

The underdog watchdog

Finally, did competition watchdog Rod Sims mislead us?

In a speech on coming changes in the area of mergers, cartels and enforcement broadly, Sims lamented his agency's record opposing mergers ("not good").

"Significantly, there have been no mergers blocked by the Tribunal or the Federal Court for at least the last 20 years," he said.

Chin up: the ACCC has in fact booked a win in that arena.

In an update by gun Ashurst partners including Bill Reid and Peter Armitage, the firm politely points out the ACCC did have a "successful application to injunct Boral Limited from taking over Adelaide Brighton Cement Limited in 2004/5".

We can only put it down to admirable modesty. Maybe a good luck omen ahead of the ACCC's appeal in the Tabcorp-Tatts merger.

Katie Walsh is the editor of Legal Affairs. She is based in our Sydney newsroom. Connect with Katie on Twitter.

David Marin-Guzman writes about industrial relations, workplace, policy and leadership from Sydney. Connect with David on Twitter. Email David at david.marin-guzman@afr.com