Biography: Competition

Oliver Borgers is a partner in McCarthy Tétrault's competition law group. Mr Borgers's focus is on competition law and foreign investment review (including the Investment Canada Act). From 1994 to 1997, Mr Borgers managed the firm's London office.

His practice centres on the application of competition laws to mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, alliances, pre-merger notifications and market conduct. Mr Borgers led the team that obtained Competition Act and Investment Canada Act clearance for Canada's largest transaction to date (Rio Tinto's acquisition of Alcan). Mr Borgers regularly provides strategic advice to major national and international companies on pre-merger clearance matters in a variety of industries and has extensive experience in various marketing and pricing practices, market restrictions, exclusive dealing and a host of other compliance, civil and criminal issues that arise out of competition law.

Mr Borgers has had extensive dealings with the Ministry of Industry and Canadian Heritage on foreign investment matters.

He regularly speaks on antitrust law, foreign investment and merger-related topics to audiences in Canada and abroad.

Mr Borgers has successfully handled hundreds of transactions in Canada from both a Competition Act clearance and Investment Canada Act perspective. Many of these transactions involved complex multi-jurisdictional issues. Some significant recent matters in which Mr Borgers has been involved include Unilever's acquisition of Alberto Culver, Anglo American's sale of MolyCop, CIBC's acquisition of MasterCard portfolio, Avaya/Nortel, ICI/Akzo Nobel, the acquisition of Four Seasons, Goldman Sachs/CanWest/Alliance Atlantis, Statoil/Hydro, Norilsk Nickel/LionOre, Stelco's reorganisation and acquisition by US Steel, GE Money/HBC credit card business, the Fairmont Hotel acquisition, AMD/ATI, Auto Trader/Yellow Pages, Sony Music/BMG, Maple Leaf Foods/Schneider Meats, Northrop Grumman Canada/L3 and PepsiCo/Quaker Oats.

Mr Borgers is recognised as a leading competition lawyer in numerous league tables and peer rankings, including the most recent editions of Chambers Global: The World's Leading Lawyers for Business, PLC's Competition Law Handbook, Legal Media Group's Guide to the World's Leading Competition and Antitrust Lawyers, Best Lawyers in Canada (competition and antitrust) and the Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory. Mr Borgers is also listed in the top tier of the Investment Canada (foreign investment review category) in the most recent edition of Chambers Global: The World's Leading Lawyers for Business.

He is an active member of the IBA, ABA and the Studienvereinigung Kartellrecht. He is a founding director of the Canadian-German Lawyers Association, former chair of the mergers committee and co-founder of the foreign investment review committee (FIRC) of the Canadian Bar Association's national competition law section.

Mr Borgers speaks English, French, German and some Spanish. He is qualified as a solicitor in Canada and England and Wales. He received his BA (Philosophy) in 1983 from the University of Toronto, his LLB in 1986 from the University of Ottawa and his LLM in 1988 from the University of Toronto.