Donald Robertson

Background

Robertson's documented formative years were spent in Sydney, the capital of New South Wales and Australia's largest city. There he undertook his undergraduate economics and law studies at the University of Sydney before entering the legal profession in the early 1980s.

Sydney was a principal centre of Australian commerce, finance, and corporate activity during his student years. Law firms there were beginning to serve national and international clients, a shift that shaped the commercial practice in which he later worked.

Education

Robertson studied at the University of Sydney, founded in 1850 as the first university in Australia. He completed a Bachelor of Economics and was the top graduate in the economics honours year in 1979, receiving the Randolph G. Rouse Prize.

He then studied law at the same university and received a Bachelor of Laws with honours in 1981. He also held the Cooke Scholarship in Law at Sydney University during 1984 and 1985.

He continued his studies at Columbia University in New York, founded in 1754 as King's College, where he received a Master of Laws in 1985. During 1984 and 1985 he held a fellowship at the Center for Law and Economics Studies and was a Robert Burton Fellow. The Center brought legal analysis and economic reasoning together, linking his economics training with his legal studies.

Career

Robertson was admitted to practice in New South Wales in 1982 and began his career in Sydney as a partner of Freehill Hollingdale & Page. The firm's Sydney practice traced its origins to Bernard Austin Freehill's practice founded in 1871. It took the name Freehill Hollingdale & Page in 1947 and expanded under partner Brian Page into corporate and commercial work within Australia and internationally. In 1978 it became the first major Australian law firm to appoint a female partner, and in 1979 it formed Australia's first national law partnership with Muir Williams Nicholson & Co of Perth.

Between 2002 and 2003 he was Principal Fellow and Associate Professor at Melbourne Business School, the graduate business school of the University of Melbourne, established in 1963. His teaching has included law and business studies students over several decades, at Melbourne and at the University of Sydney.

In 2012 the Freehills firm merged with the international firm Herbert Smith to form Herbert Smith Freehills, with a single global equity partnership. Robertson was later a partner at Herbert Smith Freehills before joining the intellectual property and technology team of Dentons Australia in Sydney as a competition and economic regulation partner. Dentons is a global law firm formed in 2013, and he is now Of Counsel for International Economic Law and Regulation there.

From June 2022 to May 2025 he served as Australia correspondent to the Governing Council of Unidroit, the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law, after nomination by the Australian government. The appointment covered international commercial contract law and transnational civil procedure. Unidroit is an intergovernmental body that studies private law and promotes its harmonization among states.

His practice centres on regulatory, competition, and commercial law, including advisory and dispute resolution work. He has advised clients including Visa and the Australian Securities Exchange, and was involved in obtaining merger clearance for the merger of the Australian Securities Exchange and the Sydney Futures Exchange. He has also acted in regulatory proceedings involving the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and the Reserve Bank of Australia. His specialisations include blockchain and cryptocurrency law, and he has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Contract Law.

Achievements

• Obtained merger clearance in relation to the merger of the Australian Securities Exchange and the Sydney Futures Exchange, a regulatory approval within his work on mergers and acquisitions and financial markets.

Membership

Robertson has been a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law since 2010. The academy promotes the study and development of law in Australia, and its fellowship recognises senior legal figures.

He is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, a London-based professional body for arbitration practitioners, and an affiliate of the Sydney Centre for International Law at the University of Sydney, which pursues research and teaching in international law.

• Fellow

  Australian Academy of Law , Australia

  2010 - present

• Fellow

  Chartered Institute of Arbitrators , United Kingdom

• Affiliate

  Sydney Centre for International Law , Australia

References

• Donald Robertson – Dentons profile Dentons profile describing Robertson's position as Of Counsel in Sydney, his advisory practice areas, his teaching roles at the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney, and his degrees.
• Dentons Australia beefs up IPT team with ex-HSF partner Trade press report on Robertson's move from Herbert Smith Freehills to Dentons Australia and his regulatory and financial services expertise.
• Dentons partner elected as UNIDROIT's Australia correspondent Trade press report on Robertson's election as Australia correspondent of the UNIDROIT Governing Council for the term June 2022 to May 2025.
• Donald Robertson – LinkedIn profile Professional profile listing his University of Sydney education, Randolph G. Rouse Prize, Melbourne Business School role, and professional fellowships and affiliations.
• Our people – University of Sydney Law School University of Sydney Law School staff listing identifying Robertson as an Adjunct Professor.