Areas of expertise

Overview

Rhys advises clients in a number of industry sectors. He specialises in the energy sector, providing advice across a broad spectrum of energy related matters, including: National Electricity Rules; National Gas Rules; retail electricity licence applications; ancillary services agreements with the Australian Energy Market Operator; power purchase agreements (including derivative transactions); electricity load interruption services agreements; gas transportation agreements; gas sale agreements; sub-haulage agreements; water licensing and water transfers; licence agreements for potential electricity and gas development sites; and Australian Financial Services Licenses.

Rhys also has experience in mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings and listings on the Australian Securities Exchange, as well as managing disclosures, voluntary or otherwise, to regulators.

Experience

Rhys has a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws from Murdoch University. Before joining Page Seager as a Special Counsel, Rhys worked as in-house counsel at Hydro Tasmania for 12 years, during which time he was the Head of Legal Services for a number of years, and he also acted in the roles of General Counsel and Corporation Secretary. Prior to working with Hydro Tasmania, Rhys practised in the corporate and commercial team at Deacons (now Norton Rose Fulbright). Rhys was a business banking manager and a complex credit analyst at Westpac for many years before commencing his legal career.

Examples of recent transactions include:

• advising Hydro Tasmania and its wholly owned subsidiary, AETV Pty Ltd, on its pricing and access dispute with Tasmanian Gas Pipeline Pty Ltd, which gave rise to the first arbitration to be heard under Part 23 of the National Gas Rules;
• advising Hydro Tasmania on its response to the Flood Enquiry Committee during the floods in 2016;
• advising Hydro Tasmania and its South African subsidiaries on the development of a project financed 10 MW run-of-river hydropower plant in the Northern Cape, on the Orange River downstream of the existing Neusberg Weir; and
• advising Hydro Tasmania, and AETV Pty Ltd, on its gas price reset negotiation under its legacy gas sale and purchase agreement with a gas commodity supplier.