Members at 5 Wentworth Chambers regularly act in a wide range of civil competition proceedings, including class actions, misleading and deceptive conduct cases, and merger clearance proceedings. The firm also has growing strength in criminal cartel cases. Catherine Bembrick currently acts in J Wisbey & Associates v UBS & Ors, a class action before the federal court where cartel conduct is alleged against leading international banks in the foreign exchange market. Alexander Vial appeared in Brickworks v BCG, a rare private litigation where a divestiture order was sought in the brick manufacturing industry.
Legal 500 Editorial commentary
Mentions
Profile
Career
Catherine has appeared in matters involving cartel conduct (criminal and civil), misuse of market power, other anticompetitive agreements and contraventions of the Australian Consumer Law. Her intellectual property experience includes patent, trade mark and copyright litigation. Catherine also regularly appears in employment and industrial matters including unfair dismissal, adverse action and restraints of trade.
Catherine is recognised in the Chambers & Partners 2025 guide for both Employment and Intellectual Property; the Legal 500 guide 2024 as a leading junior counsel in Australia for both Competition Law and Intellectual Property; and is also listed in the 2024, 2023 and 2022 Doyle’s Guide “Leading Intellectual Property Junior Counsel – NSW”.
Prior to becoming a barrister, Catherine was a Senior Associate at Allens Linklaters in the competition team, an Associate at Slaughter and May in London and Associate to the Hon Justice Bennett AC of the Federal Court of Australia. Catherine holds a Master of Laws from the University of Cambridge specialising in competition law and intellectual property.
Memberships
Catherine is also the Chair of the Medicines Australia Code of Conduct Committee (Australia’s prescription pharmaceutical industry body) and lectures in evidence law for the University of Sydney Law Extension Committee.
Content supplied by 5 Wentworth Chambers