Alexander St John
Annabel Ryan
Thu Vo
Lawyer
Lachlan Stagoll
Lily Clements-Markham
Marni Riley
Special Counsel
Emily Wang
Tasmin Cilliers

Erik Setio

Partner

Erik prioritises his relationships with clients, colleagues and other professionals to gain the confidence and understanding essential to being a trusted advisor. He is detail-orientated and approaches his work with a curious and open-minded manner.

Clients noted Erik’s “knowledge of the financial services industry and his ability to deliver legal solutions to quite complex deals has been invaluable” and that “Erik’s key strengths are the ability to take a commercial and pragmatic view of legal problems and deliver executable solutions.

Erik’s extensive expertise covers financial services law, funds management (including all forms of collective investment vehicles), capital raisings and structuring and provision of financial products and services to wholesale and retail clients. Underpinning this is his deep knowledge of financial services regulatory matters, including financial services licensing, marketing, disclosure, distribution and issuance of financial products.

Erik offers clients nearly two decades of specialist experience in investment funds and financial services regulation. He has advised major financial services providers on the structuring, establishment and promotion of listed and unlisted funds, and capital raisings and fund restructures.

Erik has also advised Australian and foreign institutional investors on their participation in a wide range of collective investment schemes and investment arrangements as well as custody, investment management and similar arrangements.

With clients increasingly requesting further support in the changing regulatory environment (especially post the Financial Services Royal Commission), Erik has proven himself to clients as an intelligent, reliable and intuitive legal adviser assisting them to navigate complex financial services laws with a short and long term view of potential viability of financial services business and commercial risks, together with end customer considerations.

Praised by clients for having “very good commercial and legal knowledge” as well as being “timely, cost effective and efficient”, Erik brings a depth of experience to our funds and financial services practice.

Prior to joining Hamilton Locke, Erik worked in the Investment Funds and Financial Services team at Clayton Utz.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

Funds Management; Financial Services Regulatory; Capital Raisings

 

AWARDS
  • Lawyers Weekly, Partner of the Year Awards, New Partner of the Year (Big Law) – 3 Years or Less, Finalist 2024
  • Legal 500, Asia Pacific Guide, Fintech and Financial Services Regulatory, Recommended Lawyer, 2023 to 2024
  • Legal 500, Asia Pacific Guide, Fintech and Financial Services Regulatory, Ranked Firm – Tier 3, 2023 to 2024
  • Chambers and Partners, Asia-Pacific Guide, Investment Funds, Ranked Firm – Band 4, 2024
  • Chambers and Partners, Fintech Legal Guide, Ranked Firm – Band 2, 2023 to 2024
  • Chambers and Partners, Asia-Pacific Guide, Financial Services Regulation, Ranked Firm – Band 4, 2023 to 2024
  • Global PERE Awards, Deal of the Year (Asia), CIC’s purchase of Investa Property Trust, 2015
  • ALB Australasian Law Awards, Insolvency and Restructuring Deal of the Year, Centro Restructure, 2012

 

QUALIFICATIONS
  • Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and  Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.) Actuarial Studies – The University of New South Wales
  • Admitted to practice in New South Wales

 

SELECTED REPRESENTATIONS
  • Advised Birdwood Energy on AUD$2 Billion Distributed Energy Partnership with Aware Super.
  • Advised the University of Newcastle, UTS, Macquarie University and WSU on joining the Uniseed Venture Fund.
  • Assisted AI Carbon on its capital raise with investors Rio Tinto, Bentleys Carbon Fund and Japan Integrated Carbon Limited (a joint venture between Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation and NYK Line) and also advised on the carbon financial services aspects.
  • Assisted Scarcity Partners on their GP staking deals (including its recent stake in Evidentia Group).
  • Advised Atlantis Fisheries Consulting Group on the design and launch of its flagship $150 million Australian Fisheries Investment Trust.
  • Advised IOOF on aspects of its partnership with Invesco to manage over $23.1 billion in index investments.
  • Advised AMP and UniSuper in relation to their investment in the $2 billion Brookfield Place Sydney (Wynyard) development.
  • Advised Intertrust in its role in the set-up of an Australian feeder fund into a market leading premier real estate fund and the launch of Tanarra Credit Partners Asia-Pacific Fund II.
  • Advised major financial services providers in relation to various regulatory reforms post the Royal Commission.
  • Advised ANZ on aspects of the sale of its Wealth arm valued at $3.825 billion to IOOF and Zurich Insurance Group.
  • Advised an international PE Fund through the various bidding stages within the NAB MLC auction (valued at $1.4 billion) and the corresponding due diligence process.
  • Advised Partners Group in the establishment of an A$550 million listed investment trust, the Partners Group Global Income Fund.
  • Advised Longlead Capital Partners on all aspect of the set-up of their Australian Longlead Pan-Asian Absolute Return Fund which serves as a feeder fund to their flagship Longlead Absolute Return Master Fund Ltd.
  • Advised Barrenjoey on the application of multiple AFSLs for the largescale composite corporate advisory, broking, trading and financing businesses.
  • Advised CIP on the licensing, structuring and establishment of the Australian trust, which was one of the ‘parallel funds’ comprising CI IV and has exposure to the Star of the South project.
  • Advised New Forests relating to various licensing issues (including its involvement in Carbon Credit markets) and the set up of various trust structures with exposure to forestry assets.
  • Advised various financial service providers (including Munich RE’s subsidiaries and Mitsui Sumitomo) in relation to its offering of weather derivatives (including licensing and disclosure issues).
  • Advised Ontario Teachers in relation to the sale of 30% of its stake in both Bristol and Birmingham airports to NSW’s TCorp and Sunsuper.
  • Acted as Australian legal counsel for Standard Life PLC in relation to its merger with Aberdeen Asset Management PLC which involved Australian wholly owned asset managers.
  • Acted as Australian legal counsel for Marsh & McLennan in relation to its acquisition of Jardine Lloyd Thompson (which also involved a divestment of the global aerospace insurance broking business of Jardine to Arthur J. Gallagher & Co).
  • Advised various wealth management businesses in relation to regulatory investigation by ASIC into instances “fee for no service” review and promotion of super products through bank branches.
  • Advised Insignia Financial (via various internal IOOF and OnePath funds) to invest USD$100m in a diversified real estate fund based in the US.
  • Acted in the establishment of ANZ’s Grow Wrap Platform (which is now owned by Insignia Financial).
  • Advised aspects of CIC’s investment in Australian commercial property (worth over A$2 billion) via CIC’s acquisition of the Investa office tower portfolio.
  • Advised AMP on the establishment of an Australian MIT and various sub-trusts to acquire an interest in the ‘Optus Centre’ at Macquarie Park.
  • Advised AMP on the restructure of the JV between AMP Capital, Westfield and Westfield Retail Trust and establishing a separate vehicle for the ownership of the Macquarie Centre (Sydney), Pacific Fair Centre (Gold Coast) and Garden City (Perth).
  • Advised on aspect of AMP Limited’s bid to acquire AXA Asia Pacific Holdings Limited’s Australian and NZ businesses (including advising AMP on issues relating to AXA’s joint venture arrangement with AllianceBernstein).
  • Advised BlackRock Australia to successfully negotiate a novel prime brokerage arrangement (which included a derivatives component) and assisted in bringing the concept of a prime brokerage arrangement (which is seen predominantly in the US, UK and HK) to the Australian market.
  • Advised Centro (CER) in relation to its restructure and recapitalisation process including the $5.4 billion complex reconstruction and merger of Centro Group’s Australian interest.  In addition, advised Centro on the sale of its entire US portfolio (worth $9.4 billion) to Blackstone.
  • Advised the Trust Company on the Asciano corporatisation process in 2010 and the Asciano capital raising in 2009.