Our Practice
The competition and foreign investment review group is one of the leading practices in the Canadian marketplace, with 21 lawyers, including five litigators, many of whom are fluently bilingual. Our lawyers advise clients on the full spectrum of competition and trade matters, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, competition aspects of strategic commercial activities, trade practices, pricing policies, relationships with customers and competitors, marketing, and distribution. We also represent clients in civil and criminal, as well as class action matters, in various Canadian courts and before the Competition Tribunal, including dealing with defence of cartel, abuse of dominance and other Competition Bureau investigations.
Our lawyers have developed specialized experience in many industries where competition issues are interrelated with other legal or regulatory concerns, including telecommunications in relation to rapid technological change and deregulation, financial institutions in relation to competition issues arising from industry consolidation due to deregulation and global competitive pressures, and energy in relation to solving utilities' antitrust problems that have arisen from the decreasing level of industry regulation.
Our Clients
We are frequently retained by and work with:
- Major domestic and international corporations;
- Trade associations;
- International non-governmental organizations on legislative and other developments in competition policy matters; and
- Leading law firms in the United States and elsewhere in the world to advise on the Canadian competition law issues associated with international transactions and investigations, as well as competition aspects of other matters involving their clients.
Our Work
Below is a sampling of some of the publicly-known matters in which we have been involved:
- Reuters Group PLC in its combination with the Thomson Corporation to create Thomson-Reuters Corporation. The combination was valued at $17.6 billion, and created a global leader in electronic information services, trading systems and news;
- TSX Group Inc. in its acquisition of Bourse de Montréal Inc. The transaction was valued at $1.3 billion;
- Xstrata Plc's acquisition of Falconbridge Ltd., valuing Falconbridge at $24.1 billion and creating the world's fourth-largest mining company;
- Metro Inc. in competition matters related to its acquisition of all the issued and outstanding shares of A&P Canada from the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, Inc. for $1.7 billion;
- Dubai Ports World on regulatory matters in its acquisition of The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company for US$6.8 billion. The deal made Dubai Ports World a top three global port operator, with 51 terminals in 30 countries, across 5 continents;
- Cineplex Galaxy Income Fund in competition matters related to its acquisition of the Famous Players movie exhibition business of Viacom Inc. for a purchase price of $500 million;
- Canada Pipe, a Canadian manufacturer of cast iron drain, waste and vent (DWV) products, in the first abuse of dominance case proceedings before the Competition Tribunal and the Federal Court of Appeal;
- Acting on numerous class actions in defence of alleged violations of the Competition Act;
- Tata Chemicals Limited in its acquisition of General Chemical Industrial Products Inc. in a transaction valued at US$1 billion;
- Barrick Gold Corporation in its acquisition of Placer Dome Inc. in a transaction valued at US$9.5 billion;
- Agricore United in its acquisition by Saskatchewan Wheat Pool in a transaction valued at $1.8 billion;
- Amcor in its sale of the Amcor White Cap business in Europe to Silgan Holdings Inc. The proceeds from the sale of the European business were €185.8 million.
Recognition
In 2008, the group was ranked by the Canadian Legal LEXPERT Directory as a "most frequently recommended" firm and four of our lawyers were ranked as "most frequently recommended" or "consistently recommended" lawyers in competition law and competition litigation. The LEXPERT/American Lawyer Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada recognized four of our lawyers as "leading', while Chambers Global consistently recognizes us as a major player in the Canadian market, stating "this is one of the best law firms in Canada and has some of the country's brightest lawyers".
Organizational Leadership
Several members of our group have held senior positions with the Competition Bureau before joining the firm, among them a former head of the Bureau and Mergers Branch, or have been retained by the Bureau as special counsel on specific matters. Our lawyers also regularly meet with the Bureau on behalf of our clients and we are at the forefront of the private sector in respect of developments in competition legislation and policy.
Lawyers in the group hold significant positions in the Canadian Bar Association's National Competition Law Section and in the Section of International Law and Practice of the American Bar Association. Group members have written extensively and appeared on panel presentations on Canadian competition issues in Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere. Members of the group edit two leading texts on competition law: Competition Law Service, an annotation of the Competition Act (Canada), and Competition Law of Canada, a loose-leaf text.
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