Fleur Gibbons

Competition and Consumer Laws

• Advising corporate clients on strategies for Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (CCA) and Australian Consumer Law (ACL) compliance of proposed conduct, including the preparation of authorisation applications and notifications for lodgement with the ACCC
• Advising corporate clients in the industrial gas and industrial batteries industries on ACCC investigations of alleged cartel conduct, including the conduct of internal cartel investigations and applications for immunity under the ACCC's Immunity Policy
• Advising various corporate clients in relation to ACCC investigations of alleged breaches of the CCA and/or ACL, including advising on and/or negotiating s87B undertakings to address the ACCC's competition concerns
• Providing various corporate clients in a range of industries with merger clearance advice and applications for informal merger clearance
• Advising the ACCC in relation to the merger issues associated with AGL’s acquisition of an interest in Loy Yang power
• Working with the Australian Competition Tribunal for six months in respect of its review of the ACCC's decision not to authorise the Qantas/Air New Zealand Alliance

Access and economic regulation of energy and telecommunications industries

• Advising the ACCC in respect of NBN Co's Special Access Undertaking which is a key part of the framework under which NBN Co is regulated and provides for the terms and conditions on which retail service providers will be able to access the network, in particular the revenue and pricing regimes to govern the provision of NBN services
• Acting for the ACCC's Communication Branch in the period 2004 to 2014 inclusive in various Australian Competition Tribunal and Federal Court proceedings relating to the regulation of access to and/or the economic regulation of Telstra's telecommunications services under the CCA, its predecessor the Trade Practices Act 1974 and the Telecommunications Act 1997
• Advising various electricity and gas network service providers on a number of reset processes before the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) under the National Electricity Law (NEL) and National Electricity Rules (NER), and National Gas Law (NGL) and National Gas Rules (NGR), and state based regulators under jurisdictional regimes. Fleur has advised CitiPower and Powercor Australia, in particular, for over a decade including acting for them in their successful appeal of the AER's decision in the Victorian distribution price review for 2011-15 in the Australian Competition Tribunal
• Advising various energy network service providers on NER and NGR amendments, including the 2012 Economic Regulation of Network Service Providers amendments, and Standing Committee on Energy and Resources' review of the NEL/NGL limited merits review regime