The term “corporate governance” is pervasive today.  It relates to all aspects of decision making in an organization, whether in the context of a major transaction, special project or new initiative or in connection with an organization’s day-to-day operations.  Investor confidence issues, media attention, regulatory and judicial scrutiny all contribute to a continuing focus on who makes decisions, how they are made and how they are disclosed.

Our firm advises clients on all aspects of their corporate governance.  Our role is to develop business effective approaches to governance that support the client’s objectives. We are retained by management,  boards of directors, committees of the board, investors and lenders to help them navigate through challenging transactions, negotiate innovative governance arrangements and manage situations involving reputation risk. We advise on legal and best practice standards that are applicable and appropriate to individual clients.

Our practice is a cross-disciplinary and includes many of our most experienced practitioners.  We have worked closely with cross-listed client in responding to evolving regulatory standards in a variety of jurisdictions and with Crown corporations and other public sector entities on their governance structures and process.  Our practice has also taken us into complex succession planning for large private companies and into high level litigation and reputation management issues.

We provide corporate governance advice in connection with:

• Capital market transactions, including IPOs, secondary offerings, going private transactions, related party transactions and take-over bids;
• Business structures, such as joint ventures, partnerships and income trusts;
• Litigation and reputation risk matters;
• Disclosure issues;
• Board structure, succession planning and assessment;
• Special committee mandates;
• Conflict of interest policies, codes of conduct and procurement policies.

Corporate governance is an important component of much of our work. We have lawyers located in three of North America’s largest financial centres who have provided advice to firms in a variety of industries, including financial services, manufacturing, technology, conglomerates, and retail services.  Many of our lawyers are recognized in Chambers Global's The World's Leading Lawyers, the Canadian Legal LEXPERT Directory and Euromoney as Canadian and international ‘most recommended’ lawyers. 

The diversity of our governance practice is illustrated by a small sampling of some of the clients with whom we have worked closely in this area, which includes:

• Bank of Montreal;
• Bank of Canada;
• Celestica Inc.;
• Masonite International Corporation;
• Patheon Inc.;
• Toromont Industries Ltd.