Robert (Bob) Baxt AO

• Partner, Freehills

 

Relevant qualifications and honours

• BA 1959
• LLB 1963
• Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne

 

• 2003 - Officer, Order of Australia ('For service to the law, particularly as a leading spokesperson in the areas of trade practice, competition,
  taxation and corporate law, and in the field of legal education')
• 2001 - Recipient, Centenary Medal ('For service to consumer protection as chairman of the Trade Practices Commission')

Relevant work history and committee involvement

• 2005 - Partner, Freehills (Melbourne) (previously solicitor at Freehills)
• 1991-2004 - Partner, Allens Arthur Robinson
• 1988-1991 - Chairman, Trade Practices Commission (now ACCC)
• 1980-1988 - Dean of Law, Monash University
• Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne
• Honorary Professor of Law at Griffith University Queensland

• Chairman of the Law Committee and a life member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors
• Member of The Executive of the Business Law Section of the Law Council of Australia

Editorships

• Founder and General Editor, Australian Business Law Review
• Founder and General Editor, Company and Securities Law Journal
• Editor, The Baxt Report

Other

• In recognition of his achievements in competition law, the University of Melbourne created an Annual Lecture Series in his name:
  Annual Baxt Lecture in Competition Law (Inaugural Baxt Lecture delivered by Prof William Kovacic in 2010)

Competition law publications

• Bob Baxt AO, Nathan Kiratzis and Matthew Eglezoz, 'Price signalling legislation - the government releases its proposal' (2011) Issue 628, Australian Trade Practices News, 13 January 2011, page 6

Many more forthcoming

Submissions to inquiries

• Senate Economics Committee, Trade Practices Amendment (Infrastructure Access) Bill 2009, Submission No 1
  Bill to amends the National Access Regime in relation to: binding time limits and limited merits review; applications by certain persons that a certain service is ineligible to be a declared service; enabling the ACCC to accept access undertakings with fixed principles that will apply to subsequent undertakings; enabling the ACCC to issue an amendment notice proposing amendments to a proposed access undertaking submitted by a service provider; administrative processes of the NCC and the ACT; and consequential amendments. Bill passed with amendments in 2010
• Inquiry by Senate Economics Committee into the Trade Practices Amendment (Cartel Conduct and Other Measures) Bill 2008
  Reported 2009 - Bill passed with minor amendments in 2009.

More information

Stephen Corones, David Merrett and David Round, 'Building an Effective Trade Practices Commission: The Role of Professor Robert Baxt AO'
(2009) 49(2) Australian Economic History Review 138-172

View ACCC Update, Issue 16, December 2004 - Celetrating 30 Years