Close, Katrina

Katrina manages our Civil Regulation team within AGS Dispute Resolution. Her expertise and practical experience in all aspects of civil penalties litigation include providing initial strategic advice on investigatory processes and cost-effective options for relief. She also specialises in seeking urgent interlocutory relief, pleading complex competition and consumer protection matters, handling large legal teams, conducting electronic litigation, preparing international cartel proceedings, as well as contempt and enforcement proceedings, mediation, and negotiating successful penalty outcomes and advising on quantum of penalty.

Her clients include the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Australian Prudential and Regulatory Authority, and the Australian Communications and Media Authority. She has successfully conducted numerous complex competition matters, as well as consumer protection and unconscionable conduct proceedings. She assisted with the successful conduct of the CFMEU High Court proceedings on behalf of Commonwealth regulators resolving the Barbaro issue in relation to civil penalty proceedings (in which the Solicitor-General appeared), and had carriage of that litigation on its return to the Full Federal Court. She also worked on the HIH Royal Commission team.

Katrina coordinates our internal Competition and Consumer Law Network, manages our Civil Regulator client lunchtime CLE program, and is a member of the Queensland Law Society, the Law Institute of Victoria, and the Competition and Consumer Law Committee of the Law Council of Australia.

Relevant experience

Katrina’s relevant work includes advising/acting for the Commonwealth in:

• complex cartel proceedings against international paper manufacturers overcoming hard-fought challenges and negotiating successful penalty outcomes
• litigation to obtain interlocutory orders requiring British American Tobacco to re-design tobacco product packaging to comply with warnings standards
• proceedings involving numerous contraventions of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, resulting in $18.6 million in penalties against 4 related corporate respondents.

Qualifications

Master of Laws, University of Sydney, 2008

Bachelor of Laws (Honours) / Bachelor of Arts, University of Sydney, 1994