Ashurst

Fantastic recognition for Ashurst Advance and Ashurst’s AI Commercial Advisory Group - the “Innovation in Strategic Direction” award at the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards Asia-Pacific 2026 .

Delighted and privileged to have worked with Hilary Goodier as part of our FT Innovative Lawyer award winning AI Commercial Group here at Ashurst ! Many congratulations to our outstanding team!! 👏👏

Once again, I was delighted to attend the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific 2026 awards dinner tonight, with many thanks to the lovely team at Harvey and iManage for sponsoring the evening and RSGI for researching the awards. It’s not often that you tear a lawyer away from our documents and desks but if the legal industry had an equivalent of Cannes, this would be it. 🎥 What I loved was the comraderie in the room and the trading of stories with clients knowing that through #techdisruption and #geopolitics , the legal industry was constantly innovating through this period of change. Delighted for Ashurst to have won 🏆 in the category for “Innovation in Strategic Direction” and the work done by our AI Advisory Board 💡 led by Hilary Goodier on the adoption of AI and workflow automation tools as well as commercial/pricing tools using GenAI. We were shortlisted for the “Most Innovative Law Firm” award as well which we won for the last two years. So proud of the team and for all the hard work which went into it. Congratulations to all the winners tonight. Excited for our upcoming combination with Perkins Coie in six weeks and wondering about what submissions we could have next year with the amazing team with technology innovation our new partners will have. 🤔 Now to clutch the trophy to bed… Paul Jenkins Karen Davies Bill Malley Mark Birnbaum Bing Ai Diane Gates Steven Scott Adam Soames Vianna Yau Jamie Ng Ai Moriya Ben Hammond Neil Pathak Siew Fong Y. Matthew Little Michelle Meng Elise Traeder Sarah Chau Valerie W. Vanessa Grimaldi Reena SenGupta Yasmin Lambert #ftinnovativelawyers

Could it get any better than this? Emma Rapaport , an operative from the iconic Street Talk column in The Australian Financial Review joins Amelia Morgan and I in this exciting episode of 𝘈𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘭. Lots of valuable insights for anyone interested in how Australian M&A works. Preview below, full episode here: https://lnkd.in/guf7RKzR #auslaw #mergersandacquisitions #privateequity Ashurst

It was great to see so many colleagues come together for our Ashurst summer party in London! A perfect moment to pause and enjoy time together, reflecting on what has been a busy and successful period for the firm. To me, moments like this are a reminder of the strength of our culture and the importance of taking time to celebrate people and their achievements. A warm welcome as well to our friends from Perkins Coie in attendance; it was a pleasure to spend time together as we continue building relationships ahead of this next chapter. Thank you to everyone who helped organise such an enjoyable evening, and to all our colleagues for their continued hard work and commitment. There is a great deal to look forward to in the months ahead.

Great to be back in London last week and to join our annual summer party. It was a chance to pause and reflect on a strong year for our London office – and to celebrate it together. This year felt especially meaningful. With our combination to form Ashurst Perkins Coie on the near horizon, it was fantastic to welcome some of our Perkins Coie colleagues to join the celebrations. And a local artist did a quick sketch of me and a few other party-goers, kindly making me look rather more glamorous than reality! A big thank you to everyone at Ashurst who joined us, and especially our London Office Managing Partner Claire Dutch and Global Chair Karen Davies for a terrific evening.

Last night’s Federal Budget tells us something important. Australia’s energy transition is no longer being framed simply as a climate task. It is now an energy security task. A productivity task. A sovereign capability task. And, increasingly, a delivery task. The headline measures are significant. A major fuel resilience package. A permanent fuel security reserve. Domestic gas reservation. Critical minerals stockpiling. Support for strategic metals production. Continued investment in transport, freight and community infrastructure. Faster approvals. Energy market reform. Consumer batteries and solar moving closer to the centre of the system. But the uncommon insight is this: the Budget is not really asking whether Australia should transition. That question has largely been answered. The harder question is whether we can build the systems needed to make the transition reliable, affordable and investable. Because the constraint is no longer just capital. It is coordination. Approvals. Transmission. Workforce. Supply chains. Social licence. Market design. And the ability of governments, regulators, investors, developers, communities and industry to move at the same time. That is why the approvals reform may be one of the most important parts of the Budget. Not because it is the most eye-catching. But because in the real world, a project that cannot get approved, connected, financed or built is not an energy transition project. It is just a slide deck. The Budget also confirms another important shift. Energy and infrastructure are no longer separate conversations. Fuel security depends on ports, freight, storage and refining capability. Renewables depend on transmission, firming, land access and planning systems. Critical minerals depend on roads, rail, power, water, processing and export infrastructure. Data centres depend on clean, reliable power. Housing depends on last-mile infrastructure. Heavy industry depends on energy policy, industrial policy and trade policy all lining up. This is the new infrastructure economy. Not single assets. Interdependent systems. The winners will be those who can see the whole chessboard. Not just the generation asset. Not just the road. Not just the mine. Not just the data centre. But the connections between them. That is where the real opportunity sits for Australia. We have the resources. We have the capital interest. We have the institutional capability. We have the project pipeline. And we definitely have the intellectual capital!! The question is whether we can turn ambition into execution quickly enough. Because the countries that win the next decade will not be the ones with the best announcements. They will be the ones that build. Get uncommon taxation insights on the 2026 Federal Budget from Ashurst 's stellar team of Sanjay Wavde , Elke Bremner , Ian Kellock, Steve Whittington and Paul Glover - see here: https://lnkd.in/gBxpW9Kv

Another terrific annual Ashurst Italian Energy & Infrastructure event held at our Milan office! Together with my colleagues Umberto Antonelli , Elena Maria Giuffrè , Annamaria Pinzuti and Nicola Toscano, we welcomed close to 300 of our valued clients where they heard from our distinguished panellists and their valuable insights on some of the latest trends surrounding BESS Tolling, Defence Infrastructure and Core Plus Infrastructure. A big thank you to our guest speakers, listed below, and to every client who joined us and helped make the event a great success! BESS Tolling Panellists: Stefano Cavriani , Mike Toomey , Roberto Ferrari , Gennaro Mathieu D'Annucci , Erik Landström , Stefano Brogelli Defence Infrastructure Panellists: Concialini Alessandro , Stephane Tetot , Arianna Chiara Marrocco , Guglielmo Iani Core Plus Infrastructure Panellists: Rosario Mazza , Lorenzo Ceretti, Damian Darragh , Giorgia Pontico , Carlo Forattini , Francesca Mascagna

Watching exceptional talent step into the partnership is always a highlight for me – huge congratulations to our 2026 cohort of new partners. This is a well-deserved recognition and reflects the significant role each of you has played for our clients and our firm. This year's group of 18 new partners says a lot about where we’re heading. They join the partnership at a time of strong momentum and opportunity for Ashurst as we continue to grow and take the next steps toward becoming Ashurst Perkins Coie. With strong representation in our areas of strategic focus, our new partners bring together the depth of experience and capabilities needed to support clients as we build the next chapter of our firm. Very well done – and welcome to the partnership! #OutpacingChange Arjuna Guruge ; John McKellar ; Sharon Liu ; Phillip Aquilina ; Srishti Natesh ; Max Strasberg ; Nick Perkins ; Sophie Suri ; Kate Davies ; Nicholas Jupp ; Wilson Liu ; Darren Phelan ; Annabel Massey ; Nicola Toscano; Alexis Rosenberg; Raquel Tarancon Plata ; Libby McKillop ; Kate Gould