Alister Bayston
Principal Lawyer
+61 3 8600 6059
abayston@aitken.com.au
Alister Bayston
Areas of Law: Business Law, Intellectual Property, Commercial Law
Qualifications: Bachelor of Arts | Bachelor of Laws
Alister Bayston is a seasoned commercial lawyer with extensive experience in private practice and in-house legal roles. He has worked with leading organisations such as HWL Ebsworth, Munich Re, Australian Unity, and Smorgon Steel, where he served as Senior Legal Counsel. Alister specialises in business structuring, acquisitions, buy-and-sell agreements, and intellectual property matters. His strategic mindset and deep industry knowledge make him an asset to Aitken Partners' commercial practice.
If you are seeking guidance with solid business law advice, complex transactions, and solving business disputes, Alister can help. As a business owner himself he gets it. We all want services quickly and from someone who makes our lives easier, not more stressful. The solution must be clear, it must work, and it must return savings to the business.
Alister understands Australian businesses of all sizes as he’s been advising them since 1994, big and small, in-house and in private practice, services, manufacturing, you name it. Many of his clients have entrepreneurial DNA so he understands the link between risk and return. He has an eye on all the moving parts of a business and draws in specialist knowledge where required.
When a client calls to bounce an idea around, he draws on my many years of commercial law experience to navigate a safe course. Clients appreciate the care and attention he brings to every piece of work and his unflappable personality in fluid situations.
Expertise
- Buying, selling or investing in businesses using a range of simple or complex structures and managing stakeholder relations
- Undertaking due diligence on targets for acquisition and advising sellers on disclosure
- Protecting and managing the business’ intellectual property assets, including identifying sources of IP, contracting to ensure ownership by an entity quarantined from trading risk, and licensing to allow for safe exploitation
- Strong focus on manufacturing including construction materials and food products and securing rights in the supply & distribution chain
- Developing and protecting brands, including advising in connection with copyright, trademarks, domain names and consumer law issues
- Tender submissions including negotiating contract terms across a range of industrial, professional or technology products and services
- Negotiating and preserving relationships between a business and its customers and suppliers
- Shareholder, founder and investor rights and agreements through shareholder/founder agreements, subscription agreements and other investment tools
- Working with overseas advisers to break into new territories
- Legal health reviews to run a ruler over mid-cycle businesses that need a check up
Alister enjoys family life with his wife and business partner, Leisa (who you’ll also find at Aitken Partners) and his ‘mostly’ adult children. He loves to get outside for adventures, whether gravel bike riding, bikepacking, hiking up and down dale or just walking the dog. Indoors, he enjoys anyone’s hospitality, movies and art.