Michael Hershan
Partner, Melbourne
Michael Hershan is a litigation lawyer with extensive experience in regulatory investigations and litigation, class actions, and general commercial litigation. He has a proven track record of managing large and complex cases, both in Australia and internationally.

Prior to joining MinterEllison, Michael spent almost a decade at a global law firm in Melbourne, Sydney and London and more recently spent five years at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), where Michael acted and advised in numerous high-profile regulatory investigations and civil penalty proceedings.

Having represented government and commercial clients in a broad range of matters, Michael understands clients’ commercial and regulatory drivers. Michael has particular skill in strategically managing investigations and disputes to achieve clients’ objectives.

Career highlights

Prior to joining MinterEllison, Michael’s experience includes:

  • Acting for ASIC in a matter against IAG concerning promised loyalty discounts for home insurance customers which ASIC alleges were offset by the operation of a machine learning algorithm which increased renewal premiums of loyal customers assessed as likely to renew.
  • Acting for ASIC in a matter against Macquarie Bank in which ASIC obtained a $10m penalty for a contravention of s 912A(1)(a) of the Corporations Act relating to Macquarie's failure to maintain adequate fraud controls over third parties accessing customers’ cash management accounts.
  • Acting for and advising ASIC in investigations and litigation associated with collapsed funeral insurer ACBF Group (also known as Youpla Group) which made misleading representations when selling funeral insurance in Aboriginal communities across Australia.
  • Advising ASIC in continuous disclosure and directors’ duties matters including against iSignThis, Nuix and Regional Express Holdings Ltd and respective directors.
  • Advising ASIC in its corporate governance and continuous disclosure investigation relating to Westpac’s contraventions of AML/CTF legislation that were the subject of proceedings by AUSTRAC.
  • Acting for CBA in the class actions concerning CBA’s contraventions of the AML/CTF Act and the ASIC investigation into related corporate governance matters.
  • Acting for Lloyds Banking Group and its former directors in their successful defence of the UK’s first shareholder class action to reach judgment, concerning claims arising from Lloyds’ acquisition of HBOS at the height of the Global Financial Crisis.