PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE:
Anthony Papamatheos SC is an experienced commercial barrister. His practice focuses on corporations, energy, resources and mining matters as well as commercial, banking and insolvency disputes.
Anthony appears in all superior courts and tribunals, for trials, interlocutory disputes and appeals. He appears for and advises many leading companies, including Fortescue, Barrick Gold, Strike Energy, Wesfarmers and Tattarang, as well as many other publicly listed exploration and mining companies.
Anthony was appointed Senior Counsel in 2024. He has been listed variously as a leading and preeminent barrister in Western Australia in Doyle’s Guide for over a decade.
His work involves obtaining results and finding practical and commercial solutions with clients. He has particular experience in energy and resources matters, including joint venture and off-take/supply disputes, contract interpretation disputes, corporate schemes of arrangement (takeovers and mergers), directors' duties cases for resources companies, state agreement matters, mining tenement applications and forfeiture cases and judicial review of regulatory decisions concerning mining approvals and infrastructure.
Matters he has worked on include:
- Obtaining mining leases and project critical infrastructure licences, access and other contested approvals for iron ore, gold, base materials and critical minerals projects, including land access for Fortescue’s ~70mtpa mines at the Solomon Hub and many other Fortescue operations.
- Over 70 company takeover and reconstruction schemes of arrangement in the Supreme Court of Western Australia, Supreme Court of New South Wales, Supreme Court of Victoria and Federal Court of Australia with $80 billion+ in cumulative deal value. These include the first solvent reconstructions in WA in three of Barrick Group’s $700m+ corporate reorganizations, the first ever scheme of arrangement for the takeover of a foreign incorporated, ASX-listed, company, and the first trust scheme in WA.
- More recent takeover, restructure and re-domiciliation schemes include Magnetic-Genesis (2026), Winsome Resources (2026), Spartan-Ramelius (2025), Latin Resources (2025), Base-Energy Fuels (2024), K2Fly (2024), Schrole (2024), PNX (2024), Azure Minerals (2024), TMT-AVL (2024), Talon-Strike (2023), OreCorp (2023), Allkem-Livent (2023), Essential Metals-Develop (2023), DDH1-Perenti (2023), Health House (2023), Vale Australia (2023), Bombardier Australia (2022), ResApp-Pfizer (2022), Oklo (2022), OzGrowth/Westoz (2022), Chevron Australia (2022), Swick Mining-DDH1 (2022), Big River Gold (2022), Vimy-Deep Yellow (2022), NTM Gold (2021), PetroNor (2021), Piedmont Lithium (2021), Galaxy-Orocobre (2021), Firefly (2021), Cassini-Oz (2020), Nzuri Copper (2019), Pacific Energy-QIC (2019), Patersons-Canaccord (2019), Navitas (2019), MacPhersons-Intermin (2019), Doray-Silver Lake (2019), Beadell Resources (2018), Decimal Software (2018), Tawana-Alliance (2018), Kangaroo Resources - PT Bayan (2018), SRG-GCS (2018), Excelsior-Spitfire (2018), Persol-Programmed (2017), Exterra-Anova (2017), Kore Potash (2017), Pan Pacific Petroleum-Zeta Resources (2017).
- Successful completion of the $20 billion+ Wesfarmers-Coles demerger by scheme of arrangement, one of Australia’s largest ever schemes of arrangement, acting for Wesfarmers Limited in the Supreme Court of Western Australia (2018).
- Advising and appearing for listed public companies on corporate control issues, ASX listing rules, Takeovers Panel matters, disclosure and other corporate governance issues, acting on curative relief applications under s 1322 of the Corporations Act 2001 and acting in market misconduct, continuous disclosure and insider trading cases.
- Advising and appearing on complex contractual and statutory interpretation disputes.
- Acting successfully on disputes concerning subscription agreements with listed public companies for securities and for vendor securities disputes (including Kestell v Davey [No 3] [2023] WASC 289).
- Recovery matters for banks, corporate advisors/brokers on their mandates, and insolvency practitioners for companies in liquidation, and other financial product and financial services disputes.
- Successful judicial review of decisions of the Minister for Mines to impose additional royalties on miners under the Mining Act 1978 (WA) as well as acting in private mining royalties disputes.
- Success in disputes concerning state agreements and large scale project tenement forfeiture cases, including defeating applications for forfeiture.
- The successful appeal to the High Court of Australia for Forrest & Forrest Pty Ltd concerning mining lease applications over the Minderoo Pastoral lease in the important leading case of Forrest & Forrest Pty Ltd v Wilson (2017) 262 CLR 510 (led by AJ Myers AC KC).
He has been on the Bar Council of the WA Bar Association since 2021, runs the Bar Reader’s Course for new barristers in WA, and is a senior honorary research fellow at the Law School of the University of Western Australia, where he lectures in Mergers & Acquisitions. Anthony has published books and articles on various corporate and commercial law topics.
He has a Bachelor of Laws (with Distinction) and a Bachelor of Commerce (in Corporate Finance) from The University of Western Australia. Anthony did articles of clerkship with senior criminal silk, Tom Percy KC. He practiced as a solicitor at a commercial litigation firm before being called to the Bar in 2011 at age 27.