This section keeps you up-to-date on the latest news and upcoming public appearances of Lavery professionals.
News
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Lexpert Recognizes Four Partners as Leading Infrastructures Lawyers in Canada
On May 13, 2024, Lexpert recognized the expertise of four of our partners in its 2024 Lexpert Special Edition: Infrastructure. Jean-Sébastien Desroches, Nicolas Gagnon, Marc-André Landry and André Vautour now rank among Canada's leaders in the area of infrastructure law. Jean-Sébastien Desroches practices business law and focuses primarily on mergers and acquisitions, infrastructure, renewable energy and project development as well as strategic partnerships. He has had the opportunity to steer several major transactions, complex legal operations, cross-border transactions, reorganizations, and investments in Canada and at an international level on behalf of Canadian, American and European clients, international corporations and institutional clients in the manufacturing, transportation, pharmaceutical, financial and renewable energy sectors. Nicolas Gagnon specializes in construction law and surety law. He counsels public and private sector clients, professional services firms and contractors as well as surety companies at every stage of construction projects. He advises clients on the public bidding and procurement processes and participates in the negotiation and drafting of contractual documents involving various project delivery methods, such as public-private partnership projects and design, construction, financing and maintenance contracts. In addition to advising various construction industry stakeholders on construction management and any claims that may arise, he also assists them with dispute resolution processes. Marc-André Landry is a member of the Litigation and Conflict Resolution group and focuses his practice on commercial litigation. He frequently assists his clients in resolving their disputes through negotiation, mediation or arbitration, or before the various courts of law. Over the years, he has represented businesses in many sectors, including construction, real estate, renewable energy, conventional energy, new technologies, financial services and pharmaceuticals. André Vautour practices in the fields of corporate and commercial law and is particularly interested in corporate governance, strategic alliances, joint ventures, investment funds and mergers and acquisitions of private corporations. He also practises in the field of technology law (drafting technology development and transfer agreements, licensing agreements, distribution agreements, outsourcing agreements, and e-commerce agreements). About Lavery Lavery is the leading independent law firm in Quebec. Its more than 200 professionals, based in Montréal, Quebec, Sherbrooke and Trois-Rivières, work every day to offer a full range of legal services to organizations doing business in Quebec. Recognized by the most prestigious legal directories, Lavery professionals are at the heart of what is happening in the business world and are actively involved in their communities. The firm's expertise is frequently sought after by numerous national and international partners to provide support in cases under Quebec jurisdiction.
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The Court of Appeal recognizes Lavery’s leadership in matters involving surety bonds
In a landmark decision, the Court confirms the scope of the surety bond indemnity agreement that our firm helped to draft in Gestion ITR inc. v. Intact Compagnie d'assurance.. Lavery’s reputation in construction bonding is well established. The firm has been a leader in this field for decades. Under the direction of our partner Nicolas Gagnon, Lavery supports the industry in contentious matters, while providing guidance on major policies. Over 30 years ago, our firm was in charge of drafting the content of an indemnity agreement between a construction company and a major surety company. That agreement is still widely used in the industry today. The Court of Appeal of Québec recognized the scope of the agreement in a recent decision, confirming that the obligations of the signatories to the agreement included, in particular, the reimbursement of losses incurred by the surety, not only under surety bonds it had issued, but also under agreements entered into between the principal surety and another surety that had agreed to act as the construction company’s guarantor. This essentially means that the signatories to an indemnity agreement must reimburse the losses incurred by a surety that was obtained by the principal surety. Our partner Nicolas Gagnon commented on this as follows: “So much effort went into drafting this indemnity agreement, given its significance for the industry. We’re obviously thrilled to see that Quebec’s highest Court agrees with our logic, and that it confirmed that the scope of the agreement we helped to draft applies to the situations we had identified.” We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge our industry colleagues’ skillful work in defending the indemnity agreement.
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Lavery involved in the construction of the new Île-aux-Tourtes bridge
Following a qualification process, the Ministère des Transports et de la Mobilité durable du Québec (MTMD) issued a call for tenders in 2022 for the construction of the new Île-aux-Tourtes bridge pursuant to the project delivery method known as design-build-finance (DBF). Since this was a DBF, the financing of this project had to be included in the proposals made by the selected candidates. Lavery represented the successful consortium made up of Dragados Canada Inc., Roxboro Excavation Inc. and Construction Demathieu & Bard Inc. Our role required expertise in the following areas: (a) Governance and corporate law (b) Project financing (banking and securities) (c) Public procurement (d) Construction law (e) Commercial agreements (f) Taxation Lavery represented the consortium from the call for proposals to the financial close, including the drafting phase leading up to the awarding of the contract to the consortium. The financing was the most complex part of this transaction. Under the hybrid approach retained for that project, a major credit facility to be granted by a bank syndicate had to be set up, as well the private placement of two tranches of bonds. This involved adjusting the rights and obligations of creditors on both sides within a sophisticated intercreditor agreement. The financing also required parent company guarantees, including from French and Spanish corporations, which required us to find common ground to accommodate the typical requirements of a North American financing and the specific corporate and commercial features applicable in France and Spain. To meet this challenge, we put together a multidisciplinary team, divided up the work in accordance with our professionals’ diverse expertises, and dedicated a team member exclusively to interactions with the MTMD, its lawyers and the issuers of performance bonds typical for this kind of projects. Sound project management practices were essential to the success of this team effort. It is a privilege for Lavery to have participated in this essential project allowing the people of Quebec to obtain a new bridge linking the regions of Montérégie and Montréal. The Lavery team was led by Josianne Beaudry, Nicolas Gagnon, Édith Jacques, David Tournier and André Vautour, and included Véronik Bonneville-Pesant, Katerina Kostopoulos, Jean-François Maurice, Joseph Gualdieri, Siddhartha Borissov-Beausoleil, Alexandre Turcotte, Luc Pariseau, Charles Hugo Gagné, Mickaël Pageau, Jean-Vincent Prévost-Bérubé and Yohann Lévy.
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Marie Cossette to speak at the APCHQ Annual Conference
On October 21, Marie Cossette, a partner and head of the Business Integrity and Public and Administrative Law groups for the Québec City office, will speak at the 56th Annual Conference of the Association des professionnels de la construction et de l’habitation du Québec (APCHQ), being held at the Hilton Lac-Leamy in Gatineau. In her presentation entitled La résiliation unilatérale d’un contrat de construction par le client : les enjeux pour chaque partie, she will address different issues such as determining the fair compensation owed to the contractor while protecting the work provider’s right to terminate the contract, the aspects to include in the contractor’s claim and the obligations of the parties when negotiating any such claim. Click here for more information or to register.
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Over one hundred participants attend Lavery construction law conferences
Lavery held two conferences, at its Montréal and Québec City offices respectively on June 1 and 8, 2017, on the latest developments, trends, and issues in construction law. Over one hundred participants attended the conferences. Marie-Claude Cantin moderated the Montréal conference, during which construction arbitration (Emil Vidrascu), the principle of fair treatment of bidders (Julie Grondin), and certain types of construction project financing (Étienne Brassard) were discussed. Marie Cossette moderated the Québec City conference, during which the legal distinction between the principal contract and sub-contract (François Bélanger), the decision in Buesco c. Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosement (Simon Rainville), and the essential due diligence principles with respect to licences, regulations, and authorization certificates (Pier-Olivier Fradette) were addressed.
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Pierre Marc Johnson speaks at the 8th edition of the Québec Industrial Barometer
On May 12, Pierre Marc Johnson, counsel and lead negotiator for the Quebec government on the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement (CETA), commented on the results of the 8th edition of the Québec Industrial Barometer during an event organized by Sous-Traitance Industrielle Québec (STIQ). At the same time, he informed the manufacturers present that it was important to put in place a European Union export strategy and action plan given the CETA’s imminent provisional entry into force. Since 2009 STIQ has been publishing the Québec Industrial Barometer, which draws an annual portrait of the manufacturing sector using a series of measurable indicators and provides an overview of the situation in Quebec.
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Benjamin David Gross participates in a panel for the OPEN FORUM OUVERT Finance Convention
On June 5, Benjamin David Gross, a partner of the Business Law group and co-chair of the Infrastructure group, spoke on financing construction projects during the Finance Conference organized by OPEN FORUM OUVERT and held at the Hotel Omni Mont-Royal in Montreal.
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Marie Cossette and Chloé Fauchon speak at the 2017 AÉECQ Convention
On May 25, Marie Cossette, partner and head of the Business Integrity practice and the Quebec City Public and Administrative Law group, and Chloé Fauchon, an associate with the same group, spoke at the 2017 Convention of the Association des estimateurs et des économistes de la construction du Québec (AEÉCQ), which was held May 25-26 at the Loews Hôtel Vogue in Montreal. Entitled Bill 108: highlights of the new rules on public contracting and the powers of the Autorité des marchés publics, the presentation answered many questions about the newly created Autorité des marchés publics (AMP) introduced in Bill 108, in particular the amendments tabled by the Minister subjecting municipalities to the AMP. To learn more about Bill 108, click here to consult our bulletin Need to Know.
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Élodie Brunet and Nicolas Gagnon spoke at the Bitume Québec Annual Conference
Élodie Brunet and Nicolas Gagnon spoke at the 13th Annual Conference of Bitume Québec that was held at the Grand Times Hotel in Drummondville on April 5. Élodie Brunet, a lawyer in the Labour and Employment Law Group, gave a presentation on the management of workplace health and safety, discussing, in particular, prevention and some practical elements of a due diligence defence and the management of workplace injuries. Nicolas Gagnon, a partner in the Litigation and Conflict Resolution Group, discussed in his presentation the limits of the protection afforded by a stipulation for another included in a construction contract, and reviewed the case law in 2016 regarding calls for tender.
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Nicolas Gagnon speaks at ACRGTQ’s 73rd annual convention
Nicolas Gagnon, a partner with the Litigation and Dispute Resolution group, spoke at the 73rd annual convention of the Association des constructeurs de routes et grands travaux du Québec (ACRGTQ) held on January 19th. The presentation, entitled Êtes-vous autant protégés que vous le croyez ?, analyzed the recent jurisprudence on the scope of the stipulation for another in construction industry contracts and reviewed the measures to implement to ensure various industry workers are legally protected. Click here for more information on the ACRGTQ.
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Marie Cossette, Josiane L'Heureux and Philippe Tremblay speakers at the 20th annual convention of the CEGQ
The 20th annual convention of the Corporation des entrepreneurs généraux du Québec (CEGQ) was held on February 15 to 17, 2017, at the Château Frontenac. Marie Cossette, Josiane L’Heureux and Philippe Tremblay were guest speakers at the convention. Marie Cossette, partner and Head of Lavery’s Business Integrity Group, spoke about key issues of the parties involved in the case of unilateral termination of a construction contract by the client. Josiane L’Heureux, partner of our Labor and Employment Law Group, presented the legislative components of criminal negligence and the principles applicable in the workplace. Philippe Tremblay, partner of our Litigation and Conflict Resolution Group, discussed on the subject of the obligations of the client to act transparently, fairly and in good faith when exercising a reservation clause allowing it to cancel a call for tenders. For more information about the CEGQ, click here.