Team Members

Adelaide Hayes

Special Counsel
Listed as a rising star in both Doyle’s Guide and the Australasian Law Awards, Adelaide is a special counsel in our corporate and commercial team with wide ranging experience in transactional and corporate advisory work such as complex mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance advice, shareholder issues and agreements and business sale and share sale transactions.

Adelaide is a special counsel in our corporate and commercial team with wide ranging experience in transactional and corporate advisory work such as complex mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance advice, shareholder issues and agreements and business sale and share sale transactions.

Adelaide also regularly assists clients with matters related to trade mark registration and protection, intellectual property ownership and licensing, technology, privacy, competition and consumer laws and the establishment and operation of not-for-profit and charitable organisations (and related tax advice).

  • Bachelor of Laws (Honours) – Queensland University of Technology
  • Bachelor of Business – Finance major (Distinction) – Queensland University of Technology
  • Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice – The College of Law
  • Solicitor – Supreme Court of Queensland
  • Rising Stars 2020 Award – Australasian Lawyer
  • Rising Star 2023 – Doyles Guide.

Corporate and commercial

  • Advising on and settling complex mergers and acquisitions.
  • Advising on corporate governance and structuring.
  • Preparing and negotiating stakeholder agreements and share and business sale agreements.
  • Advising on competition and consumer law issues.
  • Advising on a wide range of commercial agreements.

Intellectual property

  • Advising and presenting to clients on trade marks and various intellectual property law matters such as ownership of IP, licences to use and develop intellectual property and confidentiality agreements.
  • Advising on and successfully registering trade marks and overcoming adverse reports issued by IP Australia.

Not for profit and charities

  • Advising charities and not-for-profit organisations on a broad range of issues such as appropriate structures, eligibility for tax concessions, exemptions and deductible gift recipient (DGR) status, grants, agreements with third party organisations and fundraising compliance.
  • Preparing applications for a wide array of organisations to be registered as charities with the ACNC and endorsed for tax concessions and DGR status with the ATO.
  • Preparing overseas governance policies (such as anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism financing, anti-corruption, anti-discrimination, child safety and financial risk management policies) to assist Australian charities operating overseas with their compliance requirements.
  • Successfully preparing objection and review submissions to assist charities and not-for-profit organisations to appeal decisions of the ATO and the ACNC.

Privacy

  • Advising on and presenting to clients across a variety of industries on privacy law compliance and cyber security.
  • Advising and presenting to clients on the mandatory data breach notification scheme.

Blockchain

  • Advising on the legal and regulatory implications relevant to blockchain business models and start-ups.

Areas of Expertise

Publications

IP perspectives: deregistration risk arising from ‘non-use’ of a registered trade mark

‘Non-use’ of a registered trade mark can result in the trade mark being deregistered. The recent Federal Court decision of Seven Network (Operations) Limited v 7-Eleven Inc considered this issue and the use required to maintain trade mark registration.

ACCC issues warnings to Australian businesses following a sweep of retail website policies, terms and conditions

On 4 February 2025, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announced that it had conducted a review of more than two thousand Australian retail websites and that it had found numerous potential contraventions of the Australian Consumer Law.

GDPR compliance for Australian businesses selling goods and services in the EU

Australian entities looking to do business within the European Union must recognise the requirements of the EU General Data Protection Regulation and foreign privacy laws.