Marino Law is pleased to introduce you to Andrew Taylor, who is Special Counsel at Marino Law, heading up the property and commercial and estate planning division.
After more than eight years with Marino Law, Andrew has played an integral role in the growth of the firm, specialising in a range of practice areas including commercial, corporate, property and wills and estates law.
Andrew says he loves being part of a hard working, cohesive and dedicated team and has some pretty impressive matters under his belt.
- What is your position at Marino Law?
Special Counsel – I head up the property and commercial and estate planning division of Marino Law.
- What area of law do you practice?
I practice extensively in commercial, corporate, property and wills and estates law, including (without limitation) the following key practice areas:
- Mergers and Acquisitions;
- Corporate Law – including structuring and advisory, share and unit sale and acquisition transactions;
- Business Law – buying and selling businesses, hotel and pub acquisitions, intellectual property and trademarking;
- Body Corporate and Management Rights;
- Finance, Lending and securities transactions – acting for Lenders and financiers in relation to real property and personal property secured loans;
- Property Development – including acquisitions, amalgamations, subdivisions and the establishment of community titles schemes and bodies corporate;
- Franchising – acting for Franchisors and Franchisees in new franchises, surrenders, assignments or transfers;
- Leasing – acting for Landlords and Tenants in all types of leasing transactions, including Retail Shopping Centres, Commercial, Industrial or Rural;
- Wills and Estate Planning and Estate Administration – for clients from all walks of life;
- Commercial and Residential Conveyancing – including for large scale or high value transactions;
- How many years have you practiced law?
I obtained my law degree from Bond University in 2005 (attaining a commercial law specialisation) and my Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice in 2006.
I have been practicing extensively in commercial and property law on the Gold Coast for the last 16 years, 8 years of which have been at Marino Law.
- What do you love about working at Marino Law?
Over 8 years it has been enjoyable to watch Marino Law grow from a small local firm into one of the larger firms on the Gold Coast today, with a client base and connections that extends across Australia and internationally.
Our team is hard working, cohesive and dedicated. We pride ourselves on our personable, solutions-based approach to dealing with problems or issues for our clients that gives them low cost yet effective results.
Our client’s see value in our pragmatic and commercial style and often come back to us for repeat business that allows us to fully understand their commercial endeavours. Not only does this give us a better understanding of our client’s legal needs and issues, but also allows us to develop long lasting commercial relationships over years of working together.
The professionalism of our team is easy to see in the number of satisfied clients that we have and this assists in the personal development of the whole team.
For me, this is a significant contributor to long term prosperity at the firm. It also allows the group to work efficiently and seamlessly for the benefit of our client base.
- What are some examples of your experience and main area(s) of practice:-
- Corporate & Mergers and Acquisitions:-
- Advising a private company (seller) client in the smash repair industry in connection with a $37 million share sale to a publicly listed IPO including overseeing large scale legal due diligence, post-Completion earn out and consultancy agreement advisory and the assignment of large scale insurance agreements and several equipment and warehouse agreement leases;
- Advising a start-up purchasing entity in connection with the acquisition of a turf business under a staggered settlement arrangement with 85% on completion, part of which was vendor financed via a loan facility offered by the vendor, part of which was financed via an industry lender, including advising with respect to lender’s funding requirements in a share purchase transaction and compliance with s.260A (whitewash provisions) of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and 15% balance via a Put and Call Option arrangement 18 months after settlement;
- Commercial Lending and Securities:-
- Acting for second and third tier lenders in connection with commercial loans to borrowers for business purposes (commercial real property acquisitions, rent roll purchases, commercial asset purchases (eg trucks, major mining equipment etc) or for other investment based purchases, including documenting loans with real property mortgage or personal property based security, undertaking due diligence on behalf of the lender, certification and loan settlements and dealing with recovery or enforcement matters on behalf of lenders.
- Large scale freehold land transactions (including, without limitation):-
- Acting for a Purchaser in connection with $21 million of commercial and industrial property at Yatala (via separate purchasing entities) including undertaking detailed land, improvement and property due diligence (including of neighbouring reservation land) in the context of potential future development opportunities, reviewing and summarising terms of leases for in situ Tenants, coordinating funding and settlement;
- Abbatoir: Acted for a leading Australian game meat supplier (both human consumption and pet food) in connection with the acquisition of a new processing facility. This matter involved sale process management with multiple bidders and documentation and negotiation of transaction documents and coordination of the settlement process.
- Drafting of Put and Call Options and purchase Contracts for developers to acquire, amalgamate and extinguish existing community titles schemes, assisting developers with negotiating with lot owners, legal due diligence, option exercise, contract settlement, and subsequent extinguishment, amalgamation and subdivision.
- Acting for developers in land subdivisions and in connection with off plan sales under the Land Sales Act 1984 (Qld) or the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (Qld) and acting for Buyers in such developments;
- All commercial, residential, retail or industrial freehold purchase or sale transactions which included recently advising and settling the sale of a prominent retail and commercial shopping centre on the Gold Coast with over 25 leases.
- Commercial, Retail and Industrial leasing:-
- Acting for a number of larger scale commercial retail shopping centre operators and tenants or prospective tenants in connection with new leases, amendments, assignments, variations, disputes, mediations or enforcement, eviction or recovery action.
- General Commercial Agreement drafting, review or advisory:-
- Social Media Influencer: Acted for a leading Tik Tok influencer with over 18 million followers in connection with multiple endorsement agreements with several health, beauty and fitness industry agreements and in connection with corporate advisory and structuring on the incorporation of its trading arm, intellectual property arm and asset development and ownership arm and the set-up of their corporate network in Australia. This matter involved advice on the establishment of multiple corporate structures and arrangements with various service providers, large institutional organisations (across international borders) dealing with services providers, contractors, employees, whilst taking into consideration applicable domestic and international jurisdiction implications, online, world wide web and metaverse regulation and related law.
- Australian industrial and mining corporation: Acted for a well-known industrial and mining corporation on its acquisition of large scale mining equipment, followed by the hire of such equipment and personnel for large scale land clearing, road laying and mining based operations in North Queensland;
- Pest Control distributor: Acted for a leading Australian Pest Control business on its acquisition of a distribution network of Pest Control territories in Queensland. This matter involved due diligence on the local distribution network, structuring in relation to the new territories under the distribution network and documentation and negotiation of transaction documents.
- Business start-up: Advising companies or trusts from a wide range of industries on their start-up of Australian businesses. This includes advising on regulatory issues, the appropriate business structure, various legal issues concerning establishment of a company with or without a discretionary, fixed or unit trust, drafting a constitution, shareholders, directors and unitholders agreements, trust deeds, services, supply or distribution agreements, employment and contractor agreements and other legal documents and other general advisory to a fledgling business in early stages of growth.
- What do you like to do in your spare time?
Relax and enjoy the downtime by travelling to remote and beautiful places in Queensland, the rest of Australia or internationally.
- Tell us something we don’t know about you.
I’m originally from Adelaide, leaving when I was 10 years old to travel the close Pacific Islands (New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea) for 12 months before settling back into life on the Gold Coast gave me insight into different people and cultures, whilst also starting my lifelong affection for the ocean, boats, fishing, snorkelling and travelling in general.
- What is your favourite holiday destination?
Anywhere remote in North Queensland that involves a coral reef island, fishing or boating. Internationally speaking, it is hard to choose just one, but given its closeness and ease to travel, it would have to be Queenstown NZ.
