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. Seven partners are listed in Who’s Who Legal: Competition , including John D Bodrug, Anita Banicevic and litigator Sandra A Forbes, who rivals say is among the very best in the bar.
Addy became Google’s Canadian outside competition counsel in 2005 and the relationship has brought the firm plenty of deal work over the years as the Silicon Valley company struck one deal 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. On the criminal side, Forbes won a stay of proceedings against Mars in the bureau’s chocolate price-fixing case. Mark Katz represents auto parts maker Denso, which pleaded guilty to three counts of bid-rigging and agreed to pay C$2.4 million in fines.
Like Blakes, the Davies competition team is riding a wave of cross-border referrals for some of the biggest mergers around – including advising Staples in its purchase of Office Depot, a difficult matter led by Fanaki. Charles Tingley represented Burger King in its C$12.5 billion takeover of iconic Canadian coffee and doughnut chain Tim Hortons. Along with Katz he supported Addy’s work for HJ Heinz in tying up with Kraft Foods. Drug giant Teva turned to Davies twice in the past year: first on a spurned bid for Mylan, and then on a successful US$40.5 billion acquisition of Allergan’s generic business.
Davies' Competition & Foreign Investment Review practice team advises and represents 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 the 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 head of Canada’s Competition Bureau, our broad, dynamic team 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.
Continuously 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.
We are 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. The team is described in Chambers Canada 2016 as being known for its "Impressive expertise across a range of competition issues…powerful litigation capabilities" and "robust transactional expertise." Eight of our lawyers were profiled, with three in band 1 – more than any other Canadian firm. The team is also consistently awarded Chambers Global’s highest ranking. The Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory has recognized us as a "most frequently recommended" firm, and The Lexpert/American Lawyer Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada ranks Davies as the leading firm in corporate transactions in Toronto. Members of the practice are also internationally recognized in Who’s Who Legal: Competition, which lists seven of our lawyers as top practitioners; The Legal 500; 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