Professional notice
Canada
The team at Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg boasts agency experience few can match. Practice head George N Addy is a former competition commissioner and, like many of the Toronto bar’s long-time practitioners, remains active. Key partner Adam Fanaki once oversaw merger control at the Competition Bureau and busy litigator Charles Tingley was deputy general counsel of New Zealand’s Commerce Commission before rejoining the Davies team in 2012. Six partners are listed in Who’s Who Legal, including John D Bodrug, Anita Banicevic and litigator Sandra A Forbes, who rivals say is among the very best in the bar. The firm lost partner Richard Elliott in 2014, but an explosion in competition class actions in the past years means ever more antitrust files for Davies litigators.
Addy became Google’s Canadian outside competition counsel in 2005 and the relationship has brought the firm much work over the years as the Silicon Valley company hooked one tech minnow after another. Now, Addy and partner Elisa Kearney are representing the company in a Competition Bureau investigation of its online search practices, mirroring several around the world. Elsewhere, Forbes is defending firm client Mars in the chocolate price-fixing case, which is heading towards a much-anticipated trial next year. Who’s Who Legal entrant Mark C Katz, who also flits between deal work and antitrust, represents Japan’s Denso in the auto parts investigation, which pleaded guilty to competition crimes in August and agreed to pay C$2.4 million in fines.
Like Blakes, the competition team is riding a wave of cross-border referrals for some of the biggest mergers around. Burger King is a new client this year, enlisting Addy and his team to help it take over Canadian coffee and doughnut chain Tim Hortons for $12.5 billion. US generic drug giant Actavis also turned to Davies in 2014: the company retained Addy to win Canadian antitrust approval of its US$25 billion tie-up with Forest Laboratories. The firm was recently hired by Germany’s ZF Friedrichshafen to do antitrust on a US$12.4 billion deal to create the world’s second-largest auto parts supplier.
Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP is an integrated firm of approximately 240 lawyers with offices in Toronto, Montréal and New York. The firm focuses on business law and is consistently at the heart of the largest and most complex commercial and financial matters on behalf of its clients, regardless of borders.
Davies is a market leader in each of its core practice areas. The Lexpert/American Lawyer Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada ranks Davies as the leading firm in corporate transactions in Toronto.
We act for a wide range of leading industrial companies and financial institutions, both public and private, in Canada, the United States and abroad. Our clients include governments, regulatory bodies, charitable organizations, international agencies, educational institutions, individuals and trusts and estates. Many clients are directed to us for special-purpose engagements by other North American and international law firms.
Davies' Competition & Foreign Investment Review practice is recognized as a leader by clients, peers and third-party organizations. With more competition lawyers ranked by international ratings agencies than any other Canadian law firm, Davies is consistently awarded Chambers Global’s highest ranking, earning such accolades as having "true bench strength in the sense that they have multiple partners at multiple levels." Sources have also described our practice as "One of the top competition practices in Canada."
Our lawyers have earned an outstanding reputation for advising and representing a wide range of international and domestic clients across the full spectrum of competition and foreign investment review matters. We act on many of the most high-profile and complex merger, cartel and monopolization cases, as well as other cutting-edge competition litigation cases brought under various provisions of the Competition Act. We are also counsel in a vast majority of the competition class action proceedings in Canada and regularly advise clients on advertising, marketing and distribution practices and general competition law compliance. In cooperation with our clients, we develop comprehensive antitrust compliance programs, including seminars, written materials and online resources.
Led by a former Commissioner of Competition, our broad dynamic team also includes a former Senior Deputy Commissioner and Head of the Mergers Branch. Capitalizing on our collective experience, we are able to provide valuable insight into the enforcement approach taken by the Bureau. Our team also includes several of the country's top litigators who have extensive experience before the Competition Tribunal and at all levels of courts.
Continually at the forefront of emerging trends and developments in both competition legislation and policy, members of our practice regularly advise various levels of government, industry regulators and international governmental and non-governmental organizations.
The practice is profiled annually in the GCR 100 (a guide to the world's leading competition law and economics practices) and is consistently ranked as an Elite Canadian firm. In 2015, the practice was awarded Chambers Global's highest ranking, and seven of our lawyers were named leaders in their field in the areas of Competition/Antitrust and Competition/Antitrust Litigation. In 2014, The Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory recognized us as a "most frequently recommended" firm, with six of our lawyers ranked as "most frequently recommended" or "repeatedly recommended" lawyers in competition law and competition litigation.
Members of the practice are also internationally recognized in Who’s Who Legal: Competition, which lists six of our lawyers as top practitioners; The Lexpert/American Lawyer Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada; Expert Guides' Guide to the World's Leading Competition and Antitrust Lawyers; and The Best Lawyers in Canada.
CANADA
155 Wellington Street West
Toronto, Ontario
M5V 3J7
George Addy
Senior partner and head, Competition & Foreign Investment Review practice
E: [email protected]
John Bodrug
Partner, Competition & Foreign Investment Review practice
E: [email protected]
Visit our website at www.dwpv.com