Simon Buchen SC

Admitted as a legal practitioner in 1999
Admitted as a barrister in 2004
​Appointed Senior Counsel in 2018

Simon Buchen was admitted to legal practice in February 1999 and called to the bar in August 2004. He was appointed as senior counsel in 2018. Over the course of these years he has practised predominantly in the criminal law and related areas.
 
He has appeared for both the defence and the prosecution. He is regularly briefed in complex criminal cases by both defence firms and prosecutorial bodies. He has advised and represented a variety of clients, including individuals, corporations and government agencies, and has appeared in a number of interstate jurisdictions.
 
He regularly appears in first instance matters, such as trials and sentence hearings. His practice also has a strong appellate focus. He has appeared in appeals in the High Court of Australia and in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal and Court of Appeal.
 
He has advised and appeared in various inquiries, such as coronial inquests (including as counsel assisting the coroner) and statutory commissions of inquiry (including appearing before the ICAC, the Police Integrity Commission, ASIC and the Australian and NSW Crime Commissions). He has also appeared for applicants before the State Parole Authority.
 
He has advised and appeared in respect of complex federal criminal matters, such as those involving insider trading, market manipulation, taxation fraud, police corruption and foreign bribery offences. He appears in cases involving the full range of State offences, including murder, sexual offences and major drug crime.
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In more recent years he has advised and appeared in cases involving cartel offences and serious contraventions of competition laws. He appeared in the first case to be heard in the Federal Court’s criminal cartel jurisdiction, DPP (Cth) v Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha [2017] FCA 876; (2017) 254 FCR 235. He successfully defended the ANZ bank in the recent banking cartel prosecution and another large Australian corporation following an ACCC investigation.
 
He has also advised and appeared in respect of areas connected with the criminal law, such as serious environmental, industrial, aviation and other regulatory offences, and proceeds of crime litigation conducted in the Supreme Court.
 
He has served as a member of a professional conduct committee of the NSW Bar Association (from 2013 to the present) and as the Bar Association’s appointed member of the Legal Aid Review Committee.

 
Principal areas of practice

  • Criminal law
  • Appellate
  • Corporate crime
  • Competition law offences
  • Environmental offences
  • Commissions of inquiry and inquests
 
Some recent cases of note
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  • R v Kinghorn (No 4) [2019] NSWSC 1420, (2019) 348 FLR 281; R v Kinghorn [2021] NSWCCA 313 — important litigation concerning the intersection of legal professional privilege and the prosecution duty of disclosure in criminal cases, and the operation of the accusatorial principle in respect of compulsory examinations conducted under the taxation laws;

  • Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) v Citigroup Global Markets Australia Pty Ltd (No 5 Indictment) [2021] FCA 1345; Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) v Citigroup Global Markets Australia Pty Ltd (No 3 - privilege claims) [2021] FCA 1208 — advising and appearing for ANZ in the banking cartel case;

  • R v AA (No 3) [2019] NSWSC 1892; R v AA (No 5) [2021] NSWSC 195 — a sentencing matter involving an offence of contravening a United Nations sanction enforcement law;
 
  • Lane v The Queen [2018] HCA 28; (2018) 265 CLR 196 — inapplicability of the proviso to radical defects in the trial process such as possible non-performance by the jury of its function; the requirement for a unanimity direction when the Crown relies upon multiple acts causing death;
 
  • Xiao v The Queen [2018] NSWCCA 4; (2018) 96 NSWLR 1 — a decision of an enlarged bench of the Court of Criminal Appeal overturning previous authority about the manner in which pleas of guilty may be taken into account in federal sentencing; the case involved the most severe sentence imposed in Australia for insider trading;

  • McPhillamy v The Queen [2018] HCA 52, (2018) 92 ALJR 1045 — a successful High Court appeal which involved the admissibility of sexual interest tendency evidence in criminal trials;

  • Wilson v Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW) [2017] NSWCA 128; (2017) 94 NSWLR 450 — a case concerning the proper construction of s 316 of the Crimes Act 1900 and whether a person can commit a concealment offence in relation to historical offences; and R v Wilson [2018] NSWDC 487 — a successful appeal against conviction concerning the most senior clergy member to be charged with concealing sexual offences;

  • Smith v The Queen [2017] HCA 19; (2017) 259 CLR 291 — restatement and clarification of the law in relation to the mental element for drug importation offences, including consideration of whether the reasoning in Kural v The Queen (1987) 162 CLR 502 applies to offences under the Commonwealth Criminal Code;

  • Standen v The Queen [2016] HCASL 243; Standen v The Queen [2015] NSWCCA 211; (2015) 298 FLR 35; Standen v Commonwealth DPP [2011] NSWCCA 187; (2011) 254 FLR 467; R v Standen [2011] NSWSC 1422 — appeared as a Crown prosecutor in the trial, appeals and special leave application of Mark Standen, the former assistant director of the NSW Crime Commission who was convicted of serious drug importation and police corruption offences. ​


For further details or enquiries regarding Simon Buchen’s areas of expertise, fees and terms of engagement please contact his Clerk.

CONTACT HERE
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