Fasken

Fasken

Litigation & Dispute Resolution primary contacts

Vancouver

Geoffrey Cowper, Q.C. Co-leader +1 604 631 3185

Simon Coval Co-leader +1 604 631 3152

Surrey William Westeringh +1 604 631 3155

Toronto

Laura Cooper Co-leader +1 416 865 5471

Ottawa

Peter Mantas +1 613 696 6886

Montreal

Martin Sheehan Co-leader +1 514 397 4395

Quebec City

Guy Dion +1 418 640 2016

Calgary

Robert Maxwell +1 403 261 5503

Johannesburg

Nic Roodt +27 11 586 6020

Fasken is a leading international law firm with more than 700 lawyers and ten offices on four continents. Clients rely on the Firm for practical, innovative and cost-effective legal services. The Firm solves the most complex business and litigation challenges, providing exceptional value and putting clients at the center of all we do.

Our internationally-recognized litigators have won major trials and appeals for large multi-national companies in a variety of industries–mining, technology, financial institutions, communications, aviation, health, energy and life sciences. Our litigation expertise spans all areas of private and public law within both common law and civil law jurisdictions including:

Antitrust/Competition: We have extensive experience in all areas of Canadian, European and English competition law, including in relation to M&A, criminal matters, pricing and distribution issues, marketing and advertising, competition law litigation, parallel imports, technology transfers, exploitation of intellectual property rights, and issues relating to abuse of dominant position.

Class Actions: We have been at the forefront of many class-action proceedings involving complex securities, insurance, product liability, competition and financial services claims.

Domestic and International Arbitration: We act as counsel or as arbitrator on behalf of public and private clients involved in commercial disputes within Canada and worldwide. We have conducted arbitrations under all the major arbitral regimes and have lawyers with extensive experience in all manner of international disputes.

Indigenous Litigation: We have acted in landmark cases that redefined the law to reflect modern circumstances. We work with small business, industry, governments, First Nations, band councils, and individuals to resolve issues related to Indigenous rights and title, regulatory matters, and business, employment and governance issues.

Insolvency & Restructuring: We advise debtors, secured and unsecured creditors, DIP lenders, boards of directors, many other commercial reorganizations and restructurings, receiverships, bankruptcies, enforcement in secured transactions and other facets of bankruptcy, insolvency and restructuring litigation.

Insurance: We act on behalf of insurers, claimants and intermediaries on insurance coverage and liability matters. Members of our team are leaders in emerging areas such as “bad faith,” aggravated and punitive damages, and damages for mental distress. We also have experience with the highly technical area of subrogation and handling significant and multi-party losses.

IP Litigation: We work with multi-national companies and individual entrepreneurs to protect their intellectual assets—whether patents, trademarks, or copyrights. We provide strategic counsel in the prosecution of all types of intellectual property applications and IP litigation before courts and administrative tribunals.

Product Liability: We advise leading manufacturers in class action product liability cases, major mass tort cases, single product claims, warnings and recalls.

Regulatory: We deal with regulators frequently and often appear before tribunals and courts on behalf of clients in regulated industries such as communications, energy (including oil and gas exploration), transmission and distribution; transportation; food and drug; fisheries; mining; and forestry. 

Securities Litigation: We act for capital market participants including public issuers, bidders and target companies, institutional shareholders, investment dealers, securities advisers and registrants in proceedings before the courts, securities commissions and self-regulatory organizations. 

White-Collar Crime, Investigations and Compliance: We act for both the Crown and the defence in high-profile cases, including secret commissions, civil and criminal fraud, conspiracy, tax evasion, misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty and breach of trust.

Representative Work

• Acting for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in defense of a $5 billion claim arising from the Madoff fraud as the only action to be filed in Canada and one of the few actions brought by a liquidator (as opposed to investors) who entrusted assets to Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC.
• Acted for Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. in the successful defence of a petition filed by the Icahn Group seeking relief from oppression under the Business Corporations Act (BC) in the most significant corporate oppression decision since the Supreme Court of Canada’s judgment in BCE.
• Acted for IATA in landmark breach of confidence case with respect to its use of the ticketing data transmitted by Sabre in IATA’s PaxIS products.
• Acted for First Quantum Minerals Ltd. in respect of a $5.1 billion hostile takeover for Inmet. The deal was named by Lexpert as one of the Top 10 Deals of 2013.
• Acting for Nigel Wright, the former Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister of Canada,with respect to an RCMP investigation in connection to the payment of $90,000 to Senator Mike Duffy.
• Canadian Pacific Railway Co in a class action defence of a mass tort claim brought following the derailment of a train on July 6, 2013 in Lac Megantic. Also acting for CPR in defence to a clean-up order issued by the Quebec Minister of the Environment.
• Acted for First Quantum Minerals Ltd. and its subsidiaries in two international arbitrations before ICC and ICSID against the Democratic Republic of the Congo – resulting in a US$1.25 billion settlement. Transaction is considered to beone of the largest recoveries in a sovereign related dispute.
• Pro Bono counsel in public interest constitutional challenge to the cancellation of British Columbia’s prison mother-baby program.
• Acting for Royal Bank of Canada in the defence of class actions brought in British Columbia, Ontario and Québec. The Plaintiff merchants have named Visa, MasterCard and the largest Canadian credit card issuing financial institutions as defendants.
• Geoff Cowper was appointed by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General the Honourable Shirley Bond to carry out an independent review of the criminal justice system in British Columbia.

Last updated October 2018