Our PracticeOur litigation group has developed a strong reputation in business-related litigation. With approximately 40 litigation counsel located in our Toronto and Montréal offices, the group focuses on complex high stakes litigation involving significant business disputes of virtually every description.
The group has the significant advantage of being able to draw on Davies’ recognized strengths in competition, corporate, securities, tax and other areas of the law.
Our practice includes but is not limited to:
• securities litigation
• competition litigation
• class actions
• tax litigation
• professional liability and discipline cases
• constitutional litigation
• libel and slander litigation
• director and officer liability claims
• insolvency litigation
• trust, tort and contract disputes and other disputes arising out of commercial transactions and relationships
Our litigators have extensive trial and appellate experience at all levels of courts across the country, including trial and appeal courts in a number of Provinces, the Federal Court Trial Division and Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.
Our lawyers also regularly appear as counsel before administrative and regulatory tribunals as well as in private forums involving arbitrations, mediations and other forms of alternate dispute resolution. Furthermore, our litigators are experienced in dealing with cross-border and multi-jurisdictional disputes and in working closely with litigation counsel retained by our clients to act in other jurisdictions.
Our Work
Davies' litigation counsel have been involved in many of Canada's most important cases, including:
• acted for Barrick Gold Corporation in its successful US$10.4 billion takeover bid for Placer Dome Inc. to form the world's largest gold mining company. Davies also acted for Barrick Gold Corporation with respect to the $1.6 billion disposition of Placer Dome's Canadian mining assets and an interest in a foreign development project to Goldcorp Inc.;
• successfully represented Concordia University in the Bisaillon v. Concordia University case before the Supreme Court of Canada. Davies argued that the Superior Court had no jurisdiction to entertain a class action initiated by Bisaillon claiming the payment by Concordia of well over $100 million to the pension fund of its employees;
• acted as counsel to US funds managers Pershing Square Capital Management L.P., Knott Partners Management, LLC and Hawkeye Capital Management, LLC in connection with active shareholder opposition to the takeover of Sears Canada Inc. by Sears Holdings Corp.;
• appeared before the Yukon Superior Court and Court of Appeal on behalf of Scion Capital in contested arrangement and oppression proceedings concerning the takeover of Bolivar Gold by Gold Fields Ltd.;
• successfully represented Rogers Communications in an injunction proceeding brought by Telus concerning claims of misleading advertising;
• acted for The Body Shop International in complex Class Action proceedings brought by Canadian Franchisees;
• successfully represented Oakwell Engineering in the Ontario Superior Court and Ontario Court of Appeal in respect of its claim to enforce a commercial judgment of the Singapore High Court (application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada pending);
• acted for PetroKazhakstan Inc. in connection with contested proceedings arising out of the $4 billion purchase of the company by China National Petroleum Corporation;
• won a precedent-setting appeal in a key Internet libel case for Barrick Gold Corporation, the first appellate decision in Canada concerning damages that may be awarded in Internet defamation cases;
• successfully moved to strike a $70 million class action commenced against a Canadian public company;
• defended a multi-billion dollar class action filed against eight generic drug manufacturers for the reimbursement of alleged rebates paid to pharmacists and a challenge to new provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure relating to the authorization of class actions on the basis of the Québec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms;
• acted as counsel to Deutsche Bank in its role as a major financial sponsor in the Air Canada and Stelco restructurings;
• successfully appeared for Bayer in the Ontario Court of Appeal in opposing certification of a multi-billion dollar class action involving anti-trust claims;
• acting for Canada Pipe in a precedent-setting, contested proceeding before the Competition Tribunal.
Recognition
A number of members of our litigation group are recognized by various ratings agencies as leading counsel in Canada. These include the Canadian Legal LEXPERT Directory, Chambers Global’s The Guide to the World’s Leading Litigation Counsel and the LEXPERT/American Lawyer Media Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada. Our litigation groups in Montréal and Toronto are recognized as ''Most Frequently Recommended'' and ''Consistently Recommended'', respectively in the 2007 Canadian Legal LEXPERT Directory. Also, we are repeatedly recognized as leaders in Canadian commercial litigation, tax litigation, insolvency litigation, class actions and arbitration and dispute resolution.
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