Cyber attacks, a tax scandal and private equity moulding new legal terrain for Clayton Utz’s WA partners

The reputational undoing of PwC has created a window of opportunity for Clayton Utz, but the top shelf legal firm is wary a scarred Government might be reluctant to keep handing out work to the private sector.

Brett Cohen runs Clayton Utz’s Perth operations as partner in charge, overseeing nearly 160 staff and 16 partners (with another two tipped to be added soon) at its QV1 headquarters on St Georges Terrace.

He’s upbeat about the office’s workflow, which is largely tied to the strength of the WA economy and mostly revolves around advising on the deals and disputes in resources and energy.

The firm also shares in a raft of Government-related work, an avenue Mr Cohen said had been boosted in the aftermath of the PwC tax scandal.

“Their brand and their organisation here in Australia was tarnished by a few bad eggs,” Mr Cohen told The West Australian.

“The reputational damage caused them to lose work and short term, like other professional services organisations, we benefited from that, particularly in the tax space.”

But Mr Cohen is equally concerned that the severed trust between the public and private sector could drive Governments to keep more work in-house.

“The concern is that there might be some reluctance for Government organisations to brief as much work externally now because of concerns that if you’re briefing externally it might generate a conflict of interest.

“We’re concerned structurally we’ll end up with a larger government bureaucracy doing work that the private sector can probably do more efficiently.”

It comes as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission readies to roll out new takeover reforms in 2026, that could see deals worth $35 million need to get past the competition and consumer umpire before they can proceed.

WA partner Liz Humphry, who spearheads much of the firm’s M&A and equity markets work, is of the view local dealflow remains “reasonably robust”.

Mining and mining services related transactions were leading the way, with private capital also behind a lot of the activity, she said.

“We think that will continue to occur . . . we think there’s probably companies on the ASX that shouldn’t be on the ASX, and they’ll get taken out by companies they should be amalgamating with, or by private capital.”

Areas also becoming increasingly lucrative for the firm’s WA practice have been cybersecurity and privacy-related issues. Partner and litigator David Benson said people were “taking notice” of the risks a potential cyber attack poses for an organisation after a string of high-profile stings in Australia.

“We’re now seeing far more regular contact from clients asking for assistance in relation to the preparation of appropriate cybersecurity and data governance policies. And we would only expect that trend to continue,” he said.

He said Australia’s position on paying ransoms, usually demanded of companies in exchange for what’s supposed to be private data, often presented a complex dynamic for clients.

“There’s both legal and reputational risk associated with paying ransoms. But that has to be juxtaposed against the reputational risk of not being able to get people’s data back and it being published on the dark web,” he said.

“There is no doubt whatsoever that we’re going to see very substantial amendments to our Privacy Act, and that’s going to require a significant uplift by all organisations in terms of the way they collect and protect data.”