Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP - The Who's Who Legal 100 2012

What is the Who's Who Legal 100?

Eight attorneys are listed for their tax expertise, five of whom practise from the Toronto office. Firoz Ahmed specialises in the taxation of mergers and acquisitions, corporate reorganisations, debt restructurings, partnership arrangements and international taxation. Sources dubbed him “the go-to guy” for “really complex tax matters”. Al Meghji is a “phenomenal” tax litigator and has represented “big names” in the mining, telecommunications and financial services industries. Blake Murray is an “expert” on international taxation and transfer pricing while chair of the taxation department David Tetreault is commended for his “sterling work” on corporate reorganisations. Having worked for the Department of Finance in tax policy and for Deloitte, Haskins & Sells, Richard Tremblay brings “a wealth of experience” to Osler Hoskin’s tax team and is “very well respected in the legal community”. In the Montreal office, Mark Brender and Robert Raizenne are considered “brilliant tax lawyers who provide top-quality client service”. David Hardy is based in New York and earned votes for his “meticulous and methodical approach to tricky issues”.

Four Osler Hoskin names feature in the competition chapter. Michelle Lally chairs the firm’s competition law and foreign investment group and is “an authority” on merger control matters. Sources also praise her “incredible depth of knowledge” in abuse of dominance cases. Peter Glossop garnered votes for his “responsive and insightful advice”. Peter Franklyn has over 25 years’ experience of Canadian competition matters and has represented a diverse range of multinational clients including General Motors, Procter & Gamble, Viacom, Sony and Microsoft. Graham Reynolds is hailed as “one of the best” in the Canadian antitrust community. He represents both immunity applicants and targets of domestic and multinational antitrust cartel investigations and provides strategic and counselling advice to multinational corporations on competition and other regulatory matters. Peers cite his “extensive prosecutorial experience” as a factor which “sets him apart from other practitioners”.

The insolvency chapter also features four Osler Hoskin names. Robert Anderson is a partner in the Calgary office and has more than 30 years’ experience advising a range of clients including secured and unsecured creditors, lienholders, landlords, tenants, equipment lessors and debtors. He acted in the Caribou, Athlete’s World, SemCanada Group and Earthfirst restructurings, earning him a reputation as a “first-class insolvency lawyer”. Steven Golick acted as adviser to the federal government on amendments to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, enacted in 1992 and 1997, and “really knows this area inside out”. Edward Sellers is a “specialist” in cross-border work and has served as counsel to major corporations, senior lending syndicates and agents, equity sponsors and purchasers, governments and crown agencies. Marc Wasserman is “a very talented lawyer”, according to sources, with “impressive expertise in corporate recapitalisations”.

Jean Fraser and Clay Horner both feature in the capital markets and corporate governance chapters. The former’s experience includes advisory assignments providing governance advice to the boards of directors and board committees of public companies and peers commend her “effective, savvy counsel”. Clay Horner has “a first-rate understanding of clients’ needs” and is also listed in the M&A chapter. He is a former managing partner of the New York office and has worked extensively on cross-border acquisitions, divestitures and financings”. He is “undoubtedly my first choice for M&A” according to one respondent to our survey.

Osler Hoskin earns multiple inclusions in a further 15 practice areas and performs particularly well in the franchise, public procurement and trade chapters. The firm’s diverse and numerous listings demonstrate its outstanding breadth of capability and corroborate its reputation as one of Canada’s leading corporate law firms.