About the principals

John Derwent and Juan Perez have over 50 years Australian and international legal experience and worked together at an international law firm before establishing DerwentPerez | Lawyers.

They bring substantial experience negotiating and drafting contracts for commercial transactions, advising clients on disputes, providing legal advice to clients’ boards, and operations and management teams, and going to court.

Juan Perez, Principal

Juan is a commercial lawyer with over 20 years experience. His focus is on finance advisory and intellectual property protection. He is a registered trade mark attorney and provides specialist advice to Australian and international clients.

He has led the consolidation of the banking licences of two of Australia’s largest banks and advised a number of financial institutions on regulatory engagement and prudential matters.

He has led and advised on significant bank transformation initiatives including product remediation and compliance systems programs. Juan has extensive experience advising on and preparing substantial contract documentation and providing commercial law advice.

He provides specialised intellectual property and information technology advice for the protection of technology, software and business processes. He has intimate knowledge of clients’ business challenges and needs.

He has more than 15 years’ experience in executive leadership roles in the banking and IT industries. This included leading large teams in corporate and sales operations, product development and ownership, risk management, project management, in-house legal and company secretariat roles.

John Derwent, Principal

John is an internationally experienced lawyer with over 20 years experience working for national and international corporations, law firms and intergovernmental and governmental agencies including the UN and ASIC.

John’s experience as General Counsel and a senior executive includes leading large teams delivering risk management, board reporting, company secretariat, management reporting and legal functions in the insurance, mining, banking and health and assistance industries.

John has extensive experience in corporate restructuring, turnarounds and insolvencies, litigation, banking, insurance, governance and regulation, technology and business transaction advice.

He has represented professional services, industrial and manufacturing clients in the Supreme Court, the Fair Work Commission and the Federal Court.

John has provided corporate insolvency and turn-around advice in the engineering, manufacturing, construction, hospitality and property development industries. He has advised on significant corporate due diligences for acquisitions and IPOs of Australian public companies, and to the health, medical technologies, manufacturing, insurance, engineering, energy, education and professional services industries.

John only accepts work by referral.