HFW

The firm: HFW is a sector-focused global law firm with over 600 lawyers in offices across Australia, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas. We are specialists with exceptional expertise in the sectors we work in.

Whether HFW is solving complex issues within the construction, aviation or shipping industries, or providing advice across insurance, commodities and energy it has specialist lawyers who understand the clients. The firm thinks about the commercial solution first, and then underpins its advice with a solid foundation of legal expertise.

Areas of practice: The firm’s Melbourne office is staffed by five partners and associated lawyers with vast regional and international experience in sectors related to the global supply chain for goods and commodities. This includes advising on commodities. The key strengths of the office include:

Aviation: advising airlines, banks, manufacturers, support providers, owners, operators, freight forwarders and insurers on issues including regulatory and competition, operations, claims and liability disputes, and the financing and structuring of transactions.

Construction: the practice covers contentious and non-contentious work for both suppliers and purchasers. Clients range from main contractors, governmental bodies and developers, to subcontractors and suppliers.

Commodities: the firm acts on soft commodities, oil and gas, coal and steel, and non-ferrous and precious metals. Clients include energy and chemical companies, coal and metal traders, commodity trading houses, trade finance banks, brokers, insurers and trade associations.

Energy: it has expertise across the entire energy lifecycle – ranging from exploration and production, storage and transportation, LNG, refining, trading and sale of oil and gas, to electricity generation, energy management, renewables and carbon trading.

Insurance and reinsurance: the firm provides a wide range of crisis response, dispute resolution, transactional and regulatory services to clients that include insurers, captives, intermediaries, and run-off service providers.

Shipping: it advises across all areas of shipping, including wet, dry, regulatory, piracy, offshore, marine insurance, finance as well as on all forms of shipping contracts, transport-related disputes and corporate matters.