Warren Pengilley ’64 has recently been awarded Membership of the Order of Australia (AM). “This is quite possibly a unique event for a Vanderbilt J.D. graduate,” he writes.
The Order of Australia is an Australian Honour established by Royal Letters Patent and awarded by the Governor General on the recommendation of a non-political body, the Order of Australia Council. Membership of the Order (AM) is granted in recognition of “service in a particular locality or field of activity or to a particular group”. There are various levels of hierarchy in the Order, but Membership (AM) is limited nationally to 225 Australians per year.
Penguilley was a recipient in the 2009 Queen’s Birthday Honours Awards “for service to the law as a practitioner, regulator, academic and commentator in the areas of trade practices and franchising.”
Pengilley was admitted as a lawyer in Australia before he earned his J.D. at Vanderbilt on a Rotary Foundation Fellowship. After graduating from Vanderbilt, he was appointed as a commissioner of the Australian Trade Practices Commission, which is similar to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission), and then spent several years in private practice.
He recently retired from the law faculty at the University of Newcastle, Australia, having spent 15 years teaching commercial law.
Pengilley credits his Vanderbilt education for starting him on the path to a successful career in competition law. "My Vanderbilt study proved invaluable in later life," he explains. "Much of my career involved competition law, which I studied at Vanderbilt at a time when Australia had no such law. I am proud to be a Vandy graduate, and there is certainly significant Vandy input into my AM.”