Our Practice
From our offices in Toronto, Montréal and New York, we offer comprehensive and timely Canadian and U.S. tax advice on a wide variety of domestic and cross-border transactions and business vehicles, including mergers, acquisitions, reorganizations, workouts, infrastructure developments, financings, derivative transactions, joint ventures, investment funds and business trusts.  We also provide sophisticated personal tax planning to individuals and families.  In addition to our pre-eminent tax planning practice, we offer expert advice and counsel on all aspects of tax litigation and dispute resolution from the commencement of an audit by the tax authorities through representation before every level of court.

Our Clients
We have over 40 tax partners and associates serving clients in a broad range of industries, including financial services, real estate, manufacturing, telecommunications, publishing, technology, pharmaceuticals, natural resources and retailing. 

Our Work
The following list is a brief sampling of recent public transactions:

• Davies acted as counsel for a syndicate of banks in the US$2.5 billion credit financing offered by Novelis Inc. and for the initial purchasers in the US$1.4 billion issuance of senior notes, as part of Alcan Inc.'s spin-off of its aluminum rolled products business.  Davies provided corporate finance and securities, tax, environmental and commercial real estate advice;

• Davies acted for Patheon Inc., a leading independent provider of pharmaceutical manufacturing and development services, in its new North American credit facilities in the amount of US$290 million with Royal Bank of Canada as sole Administrative Agent and RBC Capital Markets as Lead Arranger and sole Book Runner;

• Davies acted for Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. in its share purchase agreement with Norske Skog pursuant to which Abitibi-Consolidated will divest its 50% share ownership in Pan Asia Paper Company Pte Ltd. for a cash consideration of US$600 million plus a cash purchase price adjustment of up to US$30 million depending on the achievement of certain financial performance objectives in 2006;

• Davies 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.

Recognition
The practice and several of our tax partners are regularly recognized as leaders in Canada. For example, the practice has received the highest rankings from each of Chambers Global's The World's Leading Lawyers for Business 2007, the Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory 2006 and International Tax Review World Tax 2006: The Comprehensive Guide to the World's Leading Tax Firms. In the Chambers Global 2007 Tax survey seven of our lawyers were recognized for their experience and transaction savvy and overall clients commented that "'[t]here is no question about it,'…this leading corporate outfit 'wins a lot of major transactions and has a whole host of senior lawyers as well as a raft of promising next generation practitioners, placing it a notch above the rest.'"

Organizational Leadership
Many of our partners are recognized as leaders among tax professionals in national and international organizations, including the Canadian Tax Foundation, the American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, the Joint Committee on Taxation of the Canadian Bar Association and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, the International Fiscal Association and the International Bar Association.  Our lawyers are widely published and are regularly invited to speak at conferences in North America and Europe.  Many have taught in universities on a full-time or part-time basis.