The BLS Report Podcast

Corporate scandals persistently resist regulatory efforts to prevent them. What makes scandals happen? In this episode, BLS Executive members Pamela Hanrahan and John Keeves are in conversation with visiting Gourlay Professor Thomas Roulet from Cambridge Judge Business School about how competing norms and incentives shape behaviour in financial and professional services. Twenty years on from the GFC, are we sleepwalking into the next crisis?

In this episode, we explore the key tax measures announced in the May 2026 budget and what they mean for commercial lawyers and their clients. Pamela Hanrahan and John Keeves are joined by experts Toby Eggleston and Peter Dunn to unpack the technical changes and their practical implications.

The discussion considers the impact on investment decisions, private capital markets and high‑growth businesses, as well as the polic process that shaped the reforms.

The relationship between regulation and innovation has always been complicated. Regulation that assumes one way of doing things can stifle innovation; conversely regulation struggles to keep up with rapid technological change. In this episode, Executive members Pamela Hanrahan and John Keeves unpack that relationship with the 2026 Trinity College visiting Gourlay Professor in business ethics, Professor Gerry George from the International Medical University in Malaysia and the Georgetown Entrepreneurship Initiative at Georgetown University in the USA.

In this episode, BLS Executive members Pamela Hanrahan and John Keeves go through the last-minute revisions to Australia’s new merger control regime with competition law expert Caroline Coops from Mallesons, including when deals involving shares or assets need to be notified to the ACCC.

Everyone knows that structural reform of Australia’s corporate regulation is needed, but where do we start? In this episode, BLS Chair Pamela Hanrahan and BLS Executive member John Keeves are in conversation with Professor Jason Harris from Sydney Law School and Natasha McHattan from nlmlegal about the recent work of the Productivity Commission on regulatory reform and the CLRA campaign by industry bodies, professional associations and academics for a standing expert body to get modernisation moving.

In this two-part episode of The BLS Report, regular co-host John Keeves and special co-host Peta Stevenson, Chair of the BLS Competition & Consumer Committee are joined by guests Caroline Coops from King & Wood Mallesons and Simon Muys from Gilbert + Tobin, to explore Australia’s new merger regime and what it means for businesses and practitioners.

Part 2

Part 2 focuses on the practical implications, covering pre-notification strategies, ACCC review processes and timeframes, Tribunal review, remedies, FIRB interaction, due diligence considerations and more.

In this two-part episode of The BLS Report, regular co-host John Keeves and special co-host Peta Stevenson, Chair of the BLS Competition & Consumer Committee are joined by guests Caroline Coops from King & Wood Mallesons and Simon Muys from Gilbert + Tobin, to explore Australia’s new merger regime and what it means for businesses and practitioners.

Part 1

Part 1 examines the foundations of the regime, including key definitions, notification thresholds, targeted industries, filing fees and the requirements of the new notification forms.

Australia’s financial consumer law was recently described by the Australian Law Reform Commission as “a tangled mess” and a “confusing maze” that is “no longer fit for purpose”. A new approach is needed. In this episode, BLS Chair Dr Pamela Hanrahan and Executive member John Keeves talk to Professor Lauren Willis, Centennial Chair of Consumer Law at Loyola Law School in California and a world-renowned expert on consumer regulation, about an alternative performance-based approach to law design.

Recorded 6 March 2025

In this episode, BLS Chair Dr Pamela Hanrahan and Executive member John Keeves meet two people at the centre of Australia’s coordinated response to cyber threat. Lieutenant General Michelle McGuinness CSC, the National Cyber Security Coordinator and Hamish Hansford, the Deputy Secretary for Cyber & Infrastructure Security in the Department of Home Affairs discuss the national strategy for cyber resilience and the Cyber Security Act 2024 (Cth).

In this special episode, BLS Executive members Pamela Hanrahan and John Keeves meet Mette Morsing, Professor of Business Sustainability and Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford. Professor Morsing is in Australia as the 2024 Gourlay Visting Professor of ethics in business and talks about how the disciplines of law and management work together in responding to climate change.