Foreign Direct Investment

Our specialist Foreign Direct investment team provide specialist legal advice to foreign clients acquiring, managing or divesting Australian investments. We have expert knowledge of Australia’s regulatory framework and unparalleled experience with foreign investment proposals across a wide range of industry sectors including private equity, technology, defence, energy and resources, real estate, infrastructure, manufacturing, agribusiness, forestry, media & entertainment and financial services.

We are privileged to be Australian counsel to multinational clients and financial sponsors on their Australian transactions and trading activities, as well as significant offshore transactions involving downstream Australian businesses. Regardless of time zones, our partners and lawyers are available to meet your requirements; our priority is helping clients achieve their commercial objectives.

JWS maintain non-exclusive relationships with top law firms throughout the world. We independently represent referrer firms looking for high quality, timely and dependable legal representation in Australia. Many of our partners have experience in major US or English law firms and are dual qualified in the US, UK or Hong Kong. We are therefore familiar with the expectations and conventions of major law firms operating in the US, Asian and European commercial and financial markets.

Whether assisting with applications to the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) or other areas of law applicable to foreign investment – including tax, antitrust/competition, corporate and financial services regulation and anti-bribery and sanctions compliance – we are familiar with the needs of Australia’s foreign investors and their counsel.