Charles Sweeney

Corporate transactions

• Advising in relation to private equity transactions, financial instruments and derivative transactions for a state investment corporation.
• Acting in the $150 million sale of a private hospitals business to an ASX listed hospital and healthcare services company, via a competitive auction process.
• Providing legal advice in relation to the acquisition of substantial shareholding in an ASX listed company, and the takeover of an ASX listed company for a major hotel and resort chain.
• Advising a substantial shareholder of a large agribusiness on the $450 million sale of the business to a UK private equity firm.
• Providing ongoing corporate advisory, intellectual property, competition and consumer, and compliance advice to a major insurance company.
• Advising in relation to complex joint venture agreement and shareholder agreements.
• Intellectual property and information technology.
• Creating patenting and other IP protection strategies for clients in IT and biotech fields (liaising with other professionals such as Patent Attorneys where appropriate).
• Applying for trade mark registrations and successfully conducting and defending trade mark opposition and infringement proceedings, including preparing submissions on adverse reports to IP Australia.
• Drafting licence agreements for clients from the perspective of both the licensee and licensor and relating to matters as diverse as plant breeders’ rights, software, business processes, trademarks and brands and copyright.
• Drafting distribution agreements for products invented in Australia and manufactured overseas.
• Drafting collaboration agreements with government-funded research bodies and training providers.
• Preparing and negotiating agreements for outsourcing of IT services including advice on the legal implications of cloud computing.
• Advising in relation to service level agreements, disaster recovery service agreements and software development and licence agreements.
• Advising in relation to master licence agreements for enterprise software.
• Advising in relation to shrink-wrap and click-wrap licence agreements.