{"id":10702,"date":"2018-03-16T16:31:48","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T05:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/?p=10702"},"modified":"2024-07-10T07:12:26","modified_gmt":"2024-07-10T07:12:26","slug":"alj-tribute-to-prof-robert-bob-baxt-ao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/2018\/03\/16\/alj-tribute-to-prof-robert-bob-baxt-ao\/","title":{"rendered":"ALJ Tribute to Prof Robert “Bob” Baxt AO"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Australian Law Journal<\/a><\/em>\u00c2\u00a0has joined\u00c2\u00a0the legal profession in paying tribute to Professor Bob Baxt AO, one of the Journal’s\u00c2\u00a0most longstanding section editors and contributors, following the news of his passing on 11 March 2018.<\/p>\n

Justice Fran\u00c3\u00a7ois Kunc, General Editor of\u00c2\u00a0The Australian Law Journal<\/a>:<\/em><\/strong><\/u><\/p>\n

It is with great regret that the Journal records the death of one of its most longstanding contributors, Robert \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bob\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Baxt AO, on 11 March 2018. At the time of his death, Bob had the unique distinction of editing two ALJ columns: Competition and Consumer Law, and Corporations and Securities. To express gratitude for his extraordinary contribution to the Journal is necessary but also inadequate.<\/p>\n

Few Australian lawyers have excelled in so many ways and been so prodigious in their output. His achievements included law school dean, Trade Practices Commission chair, law firm partner and recipient of the Centenary Medal and the Order of Australia. Bob is first recorded as a contributor to the Journal in Volume 40 (1966\u00e2\u20ac\u201c1967) and his inaugural Commercial Law Notes section is to be found at (1969) 43 ALJ 239. His publications would take many pages to list. He continued to provide contributions to the Journal in the last few months of his life with determination and good humour.<\/p>\n

The General Editor, Assistant Editors and the editorial staff of Thomson Reuters extend their deepest sympathy to his family.<\/p>\n

Tribute by the Hon R I Barrett:*<\/strong><\/u><\/p>\n

Robert Baxt AO, who has died in Melbourne aged 79, was a dominant figure in Australian business law and public life for half a century.<\/p>\n

Born in Japanese occupied Shanghai in 1938, he arrived in Sydney with his family in 1947 and attended Newington College.\u00c2\u00a0After graduating BA and LLB (Hons) from the University of Sydney and serving articles of clerkship (including in the office of Myer Rosenblum\u00c2\u00a0where future prime minister John Howard was also a clerk), he was admitted to practise as a solicitor in July 1962.\u00c2\u00a0He went soon afterwards to Harvard Law School on a scholarship, returning with a master\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s degree and a keen interest in antitrust law.<\/p>\n

After a short period with Freehill Hollingdale and Page, Bob Baxt embarked on what was to become an illustrious career as a legal academic, first as a lecturer in commercial and industrial law in the faculty of economics at the University of Sydney and, from 1967, at the law school of the newly established Monash University.\u00c2\u00a0He was appointed Sir John Latham Professor of Law at Monash in August 1972 and became dean in 1980.<\/p>\n

At Monash, Baxt looked beyond the classroom and traditional boundaries. With Professors Maureen Brunt and Allan Fels, he taught interdisciplinary graduate seminars on restrictive trade practices.\u00c2\u00a0He was a consultant to Arnold Bloch Leibler from 1986 and in that way kept touch with legal practice.\u00c2\u00a0Upon the establishment of the Centre for Commercial Law and Applied Legal Research at Monash in 1985, Baxt became its director.\u00c2\u00a0The centre fitted his strategy of bringing legal education and discussion to a wider audience in the legal and business community.\u00c2\u00a0It became a platform for workshops at which the academy and the profession came together to discuss commercial law issues of the day.\u00c2\u00a0Workshops on competition and restrictive practices law, corporate law, media law and taxation established by Baxt in the 1980s while at Monash later came under the auspices of the Law Council of Australia.\u00c2\u00a0He remained influential in these activities until his death.<\/p>\n

In April 1988, at the height of his innovative and productive career as an educator, Baxt accepted appointment as chairman of the Trade Practices Commission. He predicted that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153an interesting time\u00e2\u20ac\u009d lay ahead, commenting that people were concerned about the number of mergers and the growth of monopolies.\u00c2\u00a0His early days were marked by public airing of disagreement with his predecessor, W R McComas, over an apparent hardening of policy towards negotiated outcomes in more challenging merger cases.\u00c2\u00a0Baxt summed the matter up in the title of a public seminar in Sydney arranged by the Commission in the month after his arrival: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Same direction, different approach”.<\/p>\n

Baxt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first year witnessed something of a reinvigoration of the Commission.\u00c2\u00a0It obtained divestment orders in merger litigation against Australian Meat Holdings, won a resale price maintenance case by use of taped telephone conversations, pursued against a plasterboard manufacturer the first monopolisation case in a decade, defended a test case to define its investigative powers and took a strong stance in public debate over a new pricing and marketing system proposed by major oil companies.<\/p>\n

In his inaugural chairman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s report, Baxt called for more finance and staff, pointing out that the Commission was often pitted against very well resourced commercial interests.\u00c2\u00a0This was a theme to which he frequently returned.\u00c2\u00a0On leaving office at the end of his three-year term, he lamented to the National Press Club that, because of lack of resources, the Commission had been forced to pick lead cases in the hope of establishing precedents and that his determination to reduce negotiated outcomes had not been fully realised.\u00c2\u00a0On some occasions, he said, the Commission had been \u00e2\u20ac\u0153trampled on\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by companies whose message to the regulator was, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t touch us.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 As Baxt saw things, law reform was needed because \u00e2\u20ac\u0153huge and powerful corporations\u00e2\u20ac\u009d were not constrained by competition law as it stood.<\/p>\n

Despite these frustrations, Baxt is credited with having run an efficient and effective agency. He sought enhanced public accountability at the commission through several institutional channels.\u00c2\u00a0He introduced new strength through the recruitment of economist Brian Johns and consumer advocate and lawyer Alan Asher as full-time commissioners, and the appointment of several part-time commissioners.\u00c2\u00a0He promoted staff morale by fostering stronger personal contact with everyone in the commission.\u00c2\u00a0With his family in Melbourne and the Commission headquartered in Canberra, the decision to leave was his own.<\/p>\n

Baxt began his third career in 1991 when he joined Arthur Robinson & Hedderwicks (later Allens Arthur Robinson) as a partner.\u00c2\u00a0He moved to Freehills (now Herbert Smith Freehills) as a partner in 2005 and became Partner Emeritus in 2011.\u00c2\u00a0As a practitioner, he continued to offer comment and criticism on commercial law developments and maintained his close involvement in legal education and awareness.\u00c2\u00a0A member of the Business Law Section of the Law Council of Australia from its inception in 1980, he served on the section\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s executive for more than 30 years and was its chairman in 2001\u00e2\u20ac\u201c2003. He founded the Banking Law Association (now Banking and Financial Services Law Association) in 1983 and established its highly successful annual conferences;\u00c2\u00a0and was chairman of the Law Committee of the Australian Institute of Company Directors from its creation in 1994.<\/p>\n

He was the founding editor of both and the Australian Business Law Review<\/a><\/i> (1975) and the Company & Securities Law Journal <\/a><\/i>(1982); consulting editor of the Journal of Banking and Finance Law and Practice<\/a><\/i>; and editor of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Competition & Consumer Law\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Corporations & Securities\u00e2\u20ac\u009d sections in\u00c2\u00a0The Australian Law Journal<\/a><\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0Close involvement in these publications continued until the end of his life.<\/p>\n

In his later years, he was a Professorial Fellow at Melbourne Law School, chair of the advisory board for the competition and consumer law specialisation in the Melbourne master of laws program and an honorary professor at Griffith University.\u00c2\u00a0In 2011, Melbourne University established an annual Baxt Lecture in recognition of his substantial contribution to the development of Australian competition law.\u00c2\u00a0In 2017, the Law Council\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Business Law Section offered, for the first time, the Baxt Prize<\/a> for an outstanding research paper on the topic of human rights and business law<\/p>\n

Baxt was the recipient of honorary doctorates conferred by Griffith University and, shortly before his death, by Monash University.\u00c2\u00a0He was awarded the Centenary Medal in 2001 and appointed an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia in 2003 for service to the law, particularly as a leading spokesperson in the area of trade practices.<\/p>\n

From the very start, Baxt was a prolific writer.\u00c2\u00a0In 1966 alone, no fewer than 13 articles written by him appeared in law and accounting journals.\u00c2\u00a0He was the inaugural editor of the Monash University Law Review<\/em> in 1974 and, in more recent years, wrote The Baxt Report<\/em>, a monthly newsletter on corporate regulation.\u00c2\u00a0Books on corporate law and governance, the securities industry, financial services, trusts, managed investment schemes, auditors and, of course, competition law were authored by Baxt, some jointly.\u00c2\u00a0Names associated with Baxt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in collaborative works include Brunt, Hardingham, Afterman, Ford, Samuel, Fletcher, Hanrahan, Black, Archibald, Finnane, Kewley and Harris.\u00c2\u00a0A collection of Baxt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s writings was published in 2015 under the title Bob\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Best<\/a><\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0His writing was authoritative, accessible and highly topical.<\/p>\n

Bob Baxt made a formidable contribution to Australian business law and public life as a scholar, teacher, author, regulator, adviser and practitioner.\u00c2\u00a0He was passionate about the law.\u00c2\u00a0His passion was infectious.\u00c2\u00a0His agile and energetic brain ranged over every aspect of whichever legal topic was to hand.\u00c2\u00a0This was particularly evident at the workshops and conferences he enjoyed so much.\u00c2\u00a0After a speaker or panel had analysed an issue, the first comment from the floor would very likely be Bob\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. His contribution would be thoughtful and closely reasoned but not always brief.\u00c2\u00a0And the following coffee or lunch break would be welcomed as an opportunity for elaboration.<\/p>\n

Bob Baxt is survived by his wife, Ruth, their daughters, Miriam and Simone, and three granddaughters.\u00c2\u00a0Ruth was his constant companion throughout their married life of 56 years.\u00c2\u00a0She became involved in his professional activities and a friend to many of his colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u201c R I Barrett**<\/em><\/p>\n

*The\u00c2\u00a0full obituary written by the Honourable Reg Barrett will be published in a forthcoming issue of the ALJ.<\/em><\/p>\n

**The Honourable Reg Barrett (formerly a\u00c2\u00a0Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, and acting Judge and Judge of Appeal in the New South Wales Court of Appeal).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Featuring an obituary penned by the Hon Reg Barrett, the Australian Law Journal\u00c2\u00a0has joined\u00c2\u00a0the legal profession in paying tribute to Professor Bob Baxt AO, one of the Journal’s\u00c2\u00a0most longstanding section editors and contributors, following the news of his passing on 11 March 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":10705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,179,260,37,38],"tags":[8,178,11551,259,73,8528,11587,11554,11555],"class_list":["post-10702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australian-business-law-review","category-the-australian-law-journal","category-company-and-securities-law-journal","category-journal-of-banking-and-finance-law-and-practice","category-journals","tag-ablr","tag-alj","tag-baxt-report","tag-cslj","tag-jbflp","tag-professor-bob-baxt-ao","tag-the-hon-reg-barrett","tag-trade-practices-commission","tag-vale-professor-bob-baxt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}