Access and Economic Regulation

We have a specialist practice in third party access regulation, built through advising clients since the introduction of access regimes in Australia in the 1990s.

Our team has significant expertise advising asset owners and access seekers (including major Australian corporations and public and private financial investors) and regulated entities subject to revenue or price controls.

We advise across a range of sectors including gas pipelines and networks, electricity networks, ports, railways, airports, grain export terminals, coal handling facilities, petroleum processing facilities, gas storage reservoirs and oil terminals.

We advise on: 

• all aspects of access regulation under Part IIIA of the Competition and Consumer Act, the National Electricity Law, the National Gas Law and state-based regimes; 
• broader strategic issues affecting access seekers and infrastructure owners; 
• access undertakings and arrangements including drafting, submissions to regulators and compliance issues; 
• negotiating and drafting complex access agreements; 
• regulatory processes setting price and non-price terms of access (including submissions and responses to regulators’ determinations); and 
• matters before tribunals and courts in relation to access and pricing disputes (including representation of clients and prosecuting appeals from regulatory determinations).

A number of our team have qualifications in economics and understand the context for providing commercially focussed legal analysis of competition in markets dependent on infrastructure facilities, and of economic regulation of access terms and conditions.