Vital role played by regional offices
AGS has offices in all States and Territories of Australia, and our legal practice areas are nationally integrated. This allows us to retain and recruit the best people, no matter where they live. It also allows us to deliver consistent, well-coordinated service, while minimising any potential time delays or travel costs.
Many of our most significant matters for 2013–14 were conducted by AGS experts based outside of Canberra.
AGS's national tax practice maintained a broad geographic reach, with chief tax litigation experts being located in Sydney and Melbourne.
Our migration practice continued to comprise specialist migration practitioners in locations across the country, with most of our leading advisers located in Sydney and Melbourne, in line with the concentration of demand for their services. Key migration matters for 2013–14 included 3 matters brought before the High Court.
Our competition and consumer law practice conducted matters in jurisdictions across Australia. Significant matters in which we acted for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in 2013–14 were the Visa Inc matter (ongoing), which deals with alleged misuse of market power and exclusive dealing (coordinated from our Sydney office) and the Coles Supermarket matter (ongoing) which deals with alleged unconscionable conduct (coordinated from our Brisbane office).
The Department of Human Services engaged AGS to undertake a broad range of legal work in 2013–14, including debt and administrative law litigation in all States and Territories.
We advised the Department of Defence in many locations around Australia. For example, the Cultana matter involved AGS specialists in property and contract law from AGS Commercial in Canberra and Adelaide, OGC in Canberra advising on issues related to the Native Title Act 1993 and Lands Acquisition Act 1989, and litigation specialists in Darwin, Adelaide and Canberra advising on and acting for the Commonwealth in causes of action against the Commonwealth.
Our work on Royal Commissions during 2013–14 involved staff from our Canberra, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne offices.
During 2013–14, we supported national security-related operations for a range of agencies including AGD, the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the Director of Public Prosecutions, DFAT and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). Members of our national security practice from Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne conducted major national security matters.
This is an extract from the 2013–14 AGS annual report