Corporate and Commercial

Heenan Blaikie’s corporate and commercial lawyers provide a full range of services to a wide variety of public and private sector clients, from domestic start-ups and mid-sized growth companies to Canadian and foreign governments, and large international corporations. We regularly advise clients who are active across a broad range of industries, such as:

• construction
• energy
• real estate
• financial services
• telecommunications and information technologies
• mining
• health care
• pharmaceutical and biotechnologies
• retail and consumer products
• forestry
• insurance
• transportation
• entertainment and sports

Those who own, manage and advise businesses seek our help at every level, from step-by-step guidance on the structuring of a transaction to longer-term strategic advice on how to make a successful enterprise even stronger. Whatever business challenge our clients face, we can guide them through complex choices and potential obstacles as they work to achieve their goals. We understand the intricacies of the law, the nuances of negotiation and, most importantly, the business priorities of our clients.

Services Overview

Heenan Blaikie offers expert advice on a vast array of corporate issues and all aspects of commercial transactions, including:

• Each stage of business development – from the creation and establishment of a business to its dissolution
• Public equity offerings, including initial public offerings (IPO), secondary offerings, preferred stock, follow-on offerings, treasury offerings and underwritten offerings
• Private placements, including debt (first lien, second lien and subordinated) and equity (growth, minority, structured and venture capital) securities
• Corporate finance projects and mergers and acquisitions transactions, such as management buyouts (MBO) and buy-ins (MBI), business restructuring, divestitures, banking, private capital, leveraged recapitalizations, takeover defense, going private transactions, privatizations and financial restructuring
• Bankruptcy, insolvency and restructuring
• Corporate governance
• Corporate and commercial agreements on various business matters – partnerships and joint ventures, franchising and distribution, procurement, e-commerce and software development, public-private partnerships (PPP/P3), marketing and advertising, employment, privacy, shareholder, loan, commercial lease, licensing, manufacturing, consumer protection
• Business succession issues
• Restructuring and reorganization of domestic and global companies, including demergers and spin-offs
• Commercial contracts (negotiations, drafting and reviews)
• Intellectual property ownership and protection
• Due diligence and risk management
• Government relations – domestic (federal, provincial and municipal levels) and international
• Environmental law
• Aboriginal law
• Regulatory and public law
• Competition/antitrust