Caron Beaton-Wells

Caron Beaton-Wells is Dean, Internal at the Melbourne Business School and a Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Law School.

Caron Beaton-Wells is an internationally distinguished academic leader, committed to the role of education and research in a changing world and for a sustainable future. Hallmarks of her leadership are clarity of vision, shared purpose and values, the pursuit of excellence and the empowerment of people. She has a track record in instigating and executing on major change initiatives for organisational growth and impact, with a particular focus on digital transformation.

In her role as MBS Dean, Internal she leads the School across the functions of teaching and learning in all award and executive education programs, research, operations, marketing, external relations, people and culture and corporate services.

Caron is also an Honorary Professorial Fellow of the Melbourne Law School and a lay member of the Australian Competition Tribunal. She was formerly a member of the executive leadership team, holding successive Associate Deanships, at Melbourne Law School (ranked no. 1 in Australia and no. 5 in the world).

Her research and teaching have lain at the intersection of law, economics and business disciplines as they relate to competition in markets and the digital economy. She has been awarded substantial research funding and published extensively, contributing to the intellectual and public discourse around the world.

She has been a member of national and international editorial and advisory boards, consulted to the OECD, ASEAN, and the New Zealand Government, and been a non-governmental advisor to the International Competition Network, a member of UNCTAD's Research Partnership Platform, and a member of the Law Council of Australia's competition and consumer and small business committees.

Formerly a solicitor at (now) King & Wood Mallesons and a member of the Victorian Bar, practising in commercial and government law, Caron was the 2019 recipient of the Academic of the Year (Women in Law) Award.

She is a member of Chief Executive Women, Australia's peak organisation for influencing and engaging all levels of business and government to achieve gender balance and equity.

Significant Awards

Academic of the Year, Women in Law Awards, 2019

Norman Curry Award for Excellence and Innovation in Educational Programs, University of Melbourne, 2018

Most Notable Research

Anti-Cartel Enforcement in a Contemporary Age: Leniency Religion, Bloomsbury (Hart Publishing), 2015 (with Christopher Tran), 333pp

Australian Cartel Regulation: Law, Policy and Practice in an International Context, Cambridge University Press, 2011 (with Brent Fisse), 582pp

Criminalising Cartels: Critical Studies of an International Regulatory Movement, Bloomsbury (Hart Publishing), 2011 (with Ariel Ezrachi), 452pp

‘Antitrust’s Neglected Question: Who Is “The Consumer”? (2020) 65(1) Antitrust Bulletin 1

‘Platform Power and Privacy Protection: A Case for Policy Innovation’, Competition Policy International, Antitrust Chronicle, September 2018

‘Deterrent Penalties for Corporate Colluders: Lifting the Bar’ (2018) 37(1) University of Queensland Law Journal 107 (with Julie Clarke)

‘A Code of Conduct for Supermarket-Supplier Relations: Has it Worked?’ (2018) 46(6) Australian Business Law Review 6 (with Jo-anne Paul-Taylor)

‘Criminal Sanctions for Cartel Conduct – The Leniency Conundrum’ (2017) 13(1) Journal of Competition Law & Economics 125

'Private Enforcement of Competition Law in Australia - Inching Forwards?', (2016) 39(3) Melbourne University Law Review 681

‘The Harper Review: Qualified Hope for Australian Competition Law’ 48(4) (2015) Australian Economic Review 417

'Immunity policy for cartel conduct: revolution or religion? An Australian case -study' (2014) 2(1) Journal of Antitrust Enforcement 126

'Making Cartel Conduct Criminal: A Case-Study of Ambiguity in Controlling Business Behaviour' (2009) 42(2) Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology 218