New partner joins Minter Ellison's burgeoning Technology team
April, 2012 - Sydney, New South Wales
Minter Ellison today announced that technology and telecoms specialist Anthony Borgese has joined the firm as a partner. He is the ninth hire by the firm's top-rated Technology team in the past 12 months and is based in Sydney.
"We're delighted to welcome a senior practitioner of Anthony's calibre," Anthony Lloyd, head of Minter Ellison's TMT Industry Group, said. "Technology is a key practice area for us and we see it as a global practice, not one that is confined to Australia. Anthony's experience and skills fit perfectly with our strategy of offering to the market specialists with deep industry knowledge who can work with clients anywhere in the world.
"Our Technology team has built a global reputation and is justifiably ranked as Tier One by the respected Asia Pacific Legal 500. A couple of years ago, we worked in London with an international organisation on its global technology restructuring. That satisfied client recommended us to the Bank of Ireland to help it restructure its technology infrastructure throughout Europe and the US. We're currently restructuring another global technology deal in Chicago, and we've just completed data centre rationalisation and cloud computing deals across 10 different countries in Asia.
"None of these deals have any connection to Australia, other than the clients wanting to use the global expertise of our Australian team," Mr Lloyd said.
Mr Borgese was a partner of Mallesons Stephen Jaques over a 10-year period before leaving to set up a consulting company to work with clients on commercial projects. His expertise includes outsourcing, complex global IT and telecommunications arrangements, strategic sourcing, IT contracts, the Internet and ecommerce.
While a partner at Mallesons, he took three years' leave to work with SITA in Geneva as its General Counsel. SITA (Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aeronautiques) is the world's leading specialist in air transport communications and IT solutions.
Mr Lloyd said that TMT is one of Minter Ellison's fastest growing practices. "The continued convergence of technology, media and communications plays to our strengths, and given the broad nature of our practice in this area will continue to open up opportunities for us. Our recent work with relationship client Optus on renegotiating its deal with Foxtel and putting in place its new deal with Fetch TV are just a couple of examples of this.
"We've been fortunate to play key advisory roles in some of the major developments in Australia's fast-moving telecommunications sector. We're working with Optus on the purchase and launch of its latest satellite, Optus 10, for example. We were also closely involved in the delivery of the two projects announced by the Australian Government last month – the A$620 million NBN Co satellite procurement and the A$3 billion renewal of mobile spectrum licences.
"These are exciting times in the TMT sector, and I'm not surprised that some of Australia's other top tier firms are scrambling to catch us up," Mr Lloyd said.
