Janette McLennan

Full Profile

Janette is a commercial litigator experienced in complex multi-party director and officer claims (D&O), class actions, regulatory matters and commercial insurance/reinsurance, including coverage disputes.

Her expertise includes:

• acting for corporations, executives and insurers in class actions, regulatory investigations, insolvent trading claims, civil penalty proceedings and criminal prosecutions arising from alleged misconduct in financial markets;
• advising on coverage in respect of all forms of commercial insurance and reinsurance, including in customer remediation claims, and she has successfully conducted one of the few litigated reinsurance disputes in Australia;
• representing a wide range of professionals (including accountants, auditors, brokers, financial planners, fund managers, IT professionals, solicitors and trustees) defending claims of professional negligence, breach of contract and breach of statutory duties; and
• advising in defamation/ reputation management matters involving cross-border digital publications against primary and secondary publishers.

Janette is a core member of the firm's resilience team. The team delivers solutions to clients with the aim of building organisational resilience.

She is recognised as a leading litigation lawyer by the Best Lawyers in Australia 2019-2023, class action litigation in 2022-2023, and is also recommended by Legal 500 in Insurance, Class Actions and Litigation.

Experience

• D&O/Regulatory Litigation/Class Action: Acting in defence of civil penalty proceedings commenced by ASIC in connection with Vocation Limited's continuous disclosure obligations and the issue of a cleansing notice for a capital raising, and acting for the former Chief Financial Officer of Vocation in the related class action: Whittenbury v Vocation Limited (in liquidation) [2021] FCA 829.
• Class Action: Acting in defence of the Forge shareholder class action in the Federal Court of Australia for insurers standing in the shoes of the collapsed ASX listed company: Rushleigh Services Pty Ltd v Forge Group Limited (in liquidation) (Receivers and Managers appointed) [2019] FCA 2113.
• D&O/Class Action: Acting for a former non-executive director of a collapsed mining company in insolvent trading proceedings and a shareholder class action against the entity, its directors and auditors:  HFPS Pty Limited (Trustee) v Tamaya Resources Limited (in Liq) (No 3) [2017] FCA 650.
• D&O/Regulatory Litigation: Conducting the successful defence for the Chairman of Mariner Corporation in a test case regarding alleged contraventions of the Corporations Act with respect to an off-market takeover bid, with the decision serving as important guidance to directors on the exercise of the business judgement rule: Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Mariner Corporation Limited [2015] FCA 589.
• D&O/Prosecution: Acting for a former Chief Executive Officer defending a criminal prosecution instituted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions for allegedly misleading the market and aiding and abetting a continuous disclosure breach under the Corporations Act.
• D&O/Class Action: Successfully resisting a company director being joined by way of cross-claim to the 'RiverCity' proceedings commenced by the receivers and managers of the Brisbane CLEM 7 tunnel against the company which prepared the traffic forecasts for the tunnel: Rivercity Motorway Finance Pty Ltd (Administrators Appointed) (Receivers and Managers Appointed) v AECOM Australia Pty Ltd (No 2) [2014] FCA 713.
• D&O: Acting for the managing director of a collapsed reinsurance company in large, multi-party proceedings arising from the issue of a prospectus for a capital raising in the Supreme Court of New South Wales and Court of Appeal: Ingot Capital Investments & Ors v Macquarie Equity Capital Markets & Ors.
• Insurance and Reinsurance: Acting for local and London market insurers in complex customer remediation claims made by financial institutions.
• Insurance and Reinsurance: Successful defence of a substantial cross-border claim for indemnity under both a global and local policy governed by English and Australian law respectively: Weir Services Australia Pty Limited v AXA Corporate Solutions Assurance [2017] NSWSC 259.
• Insurance and Reinsurance: Acting for a reinsurer in its successful defence of a contractual dispute with its cedant in the New South Wales Court of Appeal where the reinsurer was not obliged to follow the insurer's settlement decisions:  MetLife Insurance Ltd v RGA Reinsurance Company of Australia Ltd [2017] NSWCA.
• London Market Insurance and Reinsurance: Member of a legal team acting in:
  • reinsurance claims arising from the 2007 California bushfires, the collapse of the World Trade Centre in New York, a Taiwanese oil spill and an avoidance case arising from losses sustained by a European transport entity; and
  • insurance matters including notifications arising from the Madoff Ponzi Scheme fraud, the purported avoidance of excess D&O insurances following a securities class action in New York and a political risk arbitration arising from government intervention in a commodities contract.
• Large scale corporate collapse: Member of the legal team that represented the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority in the Royal Commission into the collapse of the HIH Group of Companies, the largest insurance collapse in Australian history.