Corporate & Commercial

Contracts, structures and governance for businesses that need the paperwork to hold when something goes wrong.

Mergers & Acquisitions

Buying or selling a business, from the term sheet and due diligence through to completion and the restraints that follow.

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Litigation & Dispute Resolution

Commercial disputes in the NSW, ACT and Federal courts, resolved early where that is possible and run properly where it is not.

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More of what we do

Property

Wills and Estates

Industries we act for

The track record

International Service

Government and Defence

Supplying government and the defence industry.

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Technology and Software

Your product scales digitally. Your contracts have to scale with it.

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Financial Services

A regulated business, on solid legal footing.

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Also live

Real Estate and Construction

Retail, Trade and Consumer Goods

Transport, Logistics and Shipping

Associate

Sydney or Canberra, five years post-admission and up.

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Special Counsel

Sydney or Canberra, typically eight years and up.

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Associate Partner

Sydney or Canberra, a practice you are building.

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Wahlstation for German Referendare

Sydney or Canberra, open all year.

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More about working here

Our people

The track record

What we write

Articles

Where the law changed, what it now requires, and what a business has to do about it.

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Guides

One question worked through end to end, with the provisions and the decisions it rests on.

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Case notes

What a judgment decided, and what follows from it for anyone in the same position.

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Latest, and longer form

Modern award coverage: what a high salary does not buy

Pathological arbitration clauses in Singapore

Auditor liability in Singapore and Australia

Guide: directors’ duties and the compliance calendar

Guide: shareholder agreements

Germany

A German desk for businesses moving between Australia and the German-speaking market.

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Singapore

Singapore law where it governs the contract, and the arbitral seat that carries much of the region’s work.

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Vietnam

Market entry, supply arrangements and dispute resolution for Vietnam.

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Worth reading first

Vietnam arbitration

Defective arbitration clauses in Singapore

European privacy law for Australian business

Award coverage for German employers

International Arbitration

Cross-border disputes decided by a tribunal, not a court.

For Australian businesses in dispute with a foreign counterparty, and for foreign parties whose contract with an Australian company sends the dispute to international arbitration rather than to a court. We act as counsel, and we accept appointments to sit as arbitrator. Every matter is led by a principal.

2007

Practising in Australia since

Offices: Sydney, Canberra, Frankfurt

Legal systems, one team

Principal on every matter

How an arbitration runs

Six stages, and the decisions inside them

The clause, written years before the dispute

Almost everything that later constrains an arbitration was fixed when the contract was signed: the rules, the seat of the arbitration, which is the legal place that governs it rather than merely the city the hearing sits in, the number of arbitrators, the language, and whether the clause reaches the dispute you actually have. A clause that leaves the seat to be fought over later, or names an institution that does not exist, is the most expensive paragraph in the agreement. We draft them, and we are asked to repair them.

Whether the tribunal can hear it at all

Jurisdiction comes before merits. Is there a valid agreement to arbitrate, does it bind these parties, and does it cover this claim? A tribunal can rule on its own jurisdiction, and a court at the seat can be asked to review that. Getting this wrong is not a procedural setback: an award made without jurisdiction can be set aside or refused enforcement years later.

Commencing, and constituting the tribunal

A notice of arbitration commences the proceeding and frames the dispute. Then the tribunal is appointed, which is a tactical decision and not an administrative one: the arbitrator’s background shapes how the case is heard. Every arbitrator, including the one a party nominates, must be independent and impartial, and is required to disclose anything that might reasonably be seen to bear on that.

Written cases, documents and evidence

Arbitration runs on written cases, usually with the evidence attached, and there is no general discovery: document production is narrower than what a court orders and is argued request by request. Witness statements and expert reports are exchanged rather than led live, so the hearing tests evidence that is already on the record.

The hearing, and the award

Hearings are private and are usually shorter than a trial of the same dispute, because the evidence is in before anyone stands up. In international arbitration the award is final: there is no rehearing of the merits in the way there is an appeal from a judgment. It can be challenged at the seat, but only on narrow grounds, which is the trade the parties made when they chose arbitration.

Enforcement, which is the point of all of it

An award is worth what you can enforce. Under the New York Convention an award made in one member state is enforceable in the others, subject to limited grounds of refusal, and that reach is the reason commercial parties choose arbitration over a court judgment that may not travel. Where the assets are decides where this ends, and it is planned before the hearing rather than after it.

Selected matters

Arbitration work we have run

Clients are not named and no proceeding is identified. The rules, the seat, the side we acted on and the jurisdiction are. This list is short because it is complete rather than selected.

Technology implementation

Singapore-seated arbitration against an Australian counterparty

Acted for the claimant, a European company, with Senior Counsel. Preparing the written case and exhibits.

SIAC · Singapore and NSW

Commercial dispute

Security in a pending arbitration

Advised on the security position and the steps open to a party facing it.

Domestic arbitration · NSW

Shareholder dispute

Appointed to sit, in a dispute between shareholders

Acted as the mediator, not for either party. This appointment was as mediator, not as arbitrator.

Private mediation · NSW

Who does the work

The person you meet is the person who runs it

Fabian Hoffmann

Principal · Sydney, Canberra and Frankfurt

Juris Doctor (ANU) and the First State Examination in Law (Bielefeld). Admitted in the ACT, Notary Public, and Vertrauensanwalt for Germany and Austria. Works in German and English.

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Mason Keene-McCann

Principal · Canberra

Admitted in the Supreme Court of Victoria and holds an ACT practising certificate. Works with barristers and experts on contested commercial matters.

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Australia and Germany

One team, both legal systems

Where a matter runs across both jurisdictions, the German side is handled by our Frankfurt office under German law, not passed to correspondent counsel and marked up. That is the practical difference: one team, one set of documents, and nobody translating between two firms at your cost.

A cross-border arbitration usually touches a third legal system as well, being wherever the losing party’s assets sit. We work out early where an award would have to be enforced, because that answer can change how the case is run long before there is an award to enforce.

Worth reading first

Our writing on international arbitration

When an emergency arbitrator can act, and what the seat allows How Singapore courts treat a defective arbitration clause Enforcing an arbitration agreement in Singapore When a creditor cannot wind you up over a debt you agreed to arbitrate Protecting an award from arbitrator overreach Commercial arbitration in Vietnam The whole library

Latest

Newest in international arbitration

Everything we publish in this area, newest first. This list maintains itself.

Marina Bay at dusk in Singapore, the seat chosen in the arbitration agreement considered by the court

International Arbitration

Can a Creditor Wind You Up in Singapore Over a Debt You Agreed to Arbitrate?

Generally no. Where the debt is genuinely in dispute and covered by an arbitration agreement, the Singapore court will ordinarily dismiss the

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September 19, 2026

Container terminal in Singapore, the place where enforcement of the foreign arbitral award was sought

International Arbitration

Emergency Arbitrator Interim Measures: The Seat Decides the Power

An emergency arbitrator can only order what the law of the arbitral seat, or the parties’ own express agreement, allows. Adopting institutional

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September 14, 2026

The Singapore central business district and the Fullerton building on the Singapore River in daylight

International Arbitration

Pathological Arbitration Clauses: How Singapore Courts Treat a Defective Clause

A defective arbitration clause is usually salvageable in Singapore. The Court of Appeal will give effect to a clear intention to arbitrate

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August 20, 2026

Also relevant to a cross-border dispute

Commercial Litigation International Trade Law Corporate and Commercial Law Singapore Germany Industries we act for

Send us the clause

If there is a dispute, send us the contract and the arbitration clause in it. That paragraph decides the rules, the seat and much of what follows, and it is the first thing we read. We will tell you what it commits you to, what the case is likely to cost, and where an award would have to be enforced.

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