Bio

Tony Damian is widely regarded as one of Australia’s leading M&A lawyers. Tony has a track record of helping clients achieve their goals in the most complex and significant transactions. For over 25 years, Tony has assisted clients by providing strategic and practical advice. The Chambers Global and Asia-Pacific Guides have rated Tony for a number of years as one of only a small handful of Band 1 M&A lawyers in Australia, with one client in the 2023 edition saying “He’s now the leading M&A lawyer in Australia.” Tony is in the 2021 Legal 500 Hall of Fame with one client noting: “Tony Damian is in my view the country’s leading M&A lawyer these days. He has unrivalled technical skills but also is acutely commercial, practical, and responsive. His list of marquee transactions is testimony to the regard in which he is held in the market.” Tony has won the Australasian Law Awards Australian Dealmaker of the Year for the last four consecutive years (2023 (joint winner), 2022, 2021 and 2020). At the 2023 awards one judge’s comment was: “Tony is at the top of his game and the top of M&A legal practice in Australia, both as a practitioner and as a thought leader.” Tony was included in the inaugural 2021 Australasian Lawyer Most Influential Lawyers list and also in its 2022 and 2023 lists. He is also the Lawyers’ Weekly 2022 and 2021 M&A Partner of the Year, 2021 Australian Law Awards Partner of the Year and 2020 Commercial Partner of the Year. Tony won Dealmaker of the Year at the inaugural 2010 Lawyers Weekly Awards and again at the 2014 Awards. He has been nominated a further eight times for Dealmaker of the Year by Lawyers Weekly and Australasian Legal Business. Tony was also the MergerLinks Top M&A Lawyer for Australia and New Zealand in 2021 and 2020, winning its M&A deal league tables in both years, with a 2021 deal value over £29 billion. Tony is co-author of Schemes, Takeovers and Himalayan Peaks, a leading book on public company mergers that founded the Ross Parsons Centre monograph series at the University of Sydney. Now in its fourth edition, the book has been described by the Chief Justice of New South Wales as the “pre-eminent text” in the area and has been cited in over 40 judgments. Tony is the co-editor of Before You Tie the Knot, a major book on joint venture law and also of Towns Under Siege, a major book on contemporary issues in takeovers. He is also General Editor of the Australian Journal of Corporate Law. Tony co-founded The M&A Conference, an annual charity conference run in conjunction with Allens and King & Wood Mallesons, in partnership with the Australian Financial Review and in support of The Black Dog Institute, a leading mental health charity.