Daniel Preston joins Freehills just months after the firm promoted Patrick Gay to the partnership. The move suggests a move by Freehills to improve its competition capabilities.

Freehills CEO Gavin Bell said the firm had identified competition and market regulation as offering substantial opportunity for the firm given some of the high profile M&A deals that continue to face considerable scrutiny from the ACCC.

“Increasingly, a commercial law firm’s competition law offering is a strategically important way for it to secure transactions and other business for the firm generally. At the same time, competition law continues to become more complex and there is a high demand for partners with deep experience in the area,” Bell said.

Freehills’ competition and market regulation team is regularly ranked as a leading practice by industry publications.

Preston, who was most recently a partner at Blake Dawson, has experience dealing with all aspects of competition and consumer protection law, including expertise in working on multi-jurisdictional competition issues.

“Competition and market regulation is increasingly critical to Australian businesses and the economy," he said.

Freehills’ CMR team includes Paul Hughes, Chris Jose, Peter McDonald, Patrick Gay, Daniel Preston, Karen Gibbons, Michael Gray, and Bob Baxt.