One of the major Canadian business law decisions of 2007 was Ventas, Inc. v. Sunrise Senior Living Real Estate Investment Trust, in which the Ontario Court of Appeal considered whether the successful bidder in Sunrise's auction of its assets could require Sunrise to enforce against a subsequent higher bidder the standstill entered into by the later bidder.  A few months later, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice had to consider similar issues in Quebecor Media Inc. v. Osprey Media Income Fund and Black Press Ltd.  These decisions were the basis for the Davies 2008 Corporate/Securities Law Moot which was held in Toronto on February 29 and March 1.  So that it wouldn't be too easy for the mooters, the decision of the board of the target and the possible conflict with their fiduciary duties was made more difficult in the Moot than it was in the actual cases.

Recognized as the leading event of its kind in Canada, the Davies' annual Corporate/Securities Law Moot provides an opportunity for top students from Canadian law schools to debate current legal issues in corporate and securities law with senior practitioners from Toronto law firms and corporations, regulators from the Ontario Securities Commission and judges.  The students were tested on their written advocacy (presented in a factum delivered prior to the competition) and their oral advocacy. Each student was required to argue twice during the competition, once on behalf of the appellant and once on behalf of the respondent.

Twelve law schools from across Canada competed in the two-day event before panels of judges drawn from the firm, from the judiciary and from the legal and business community.  The two top teams, the University of Western Ontario and Osgoode Hall Law School, competed in a final round before a five-member panel, consisting of Justices Kathryn Feldman and Robert Blair of the Ontario Court of Appeal, Justice Ian Nordheimer of the Superior Court of Justice for Ontario, David Brown, former Chair and Chief Executive Officer of the Ontario Securities Commission and now a Partner of Davies in the Toronto office, and Lawrence Ritchie, Vice Chair of the Ontario Securities Commission.

Western won top prize with a team consisting of Michael Beeforth, Raphael Eghan, Zohaib Maladwala and Meredith Tapper.  The team of Zohar Levy, Pavel Malysheuski, Alan Melamud and Kevin Nash from Osgoode placed second, and the University of Toronto team of Ian Caines, Stephanie Couzin, Kathryn Esaw and Vinay Sarin claimed third place.  Zohar Levy of Osgoode was named top oralist of the Moot, second place oralist was Marie-France Dompierre of the University of Ottawa, and Jennifer Shepherd of the University of Calgary was third place oralist.  Factum prizes were awarded to Western, the University of British Columbia and the University of Calgary for their first, second and third place rankings, respectively.