Clean Harbors Acquires Safety-Kleen Chemical Services Division

Effective September 6, 2002, Massachusetts-based Clean Harbors Inc. acquired the chemical services division of Safety-Kleen Corp. for US$46.3 million in cash and the assumption of certain liabilities, including environmental liabilities valued at approximately US$265 million. As part of this transaction, Clean Harbors acquired all the issued and outstanding shares of Safety-Kleen Corp.’s Canadian subsidiary, Safety-Kleen Ltd., based in Alberta.

Clean Harbors is now the largest provider of hazardous waste management services in North America. South Carolina-based Safety-Kleen Corp. is currently under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S., which it entered into voluntarily on June 9, 2000.

Acting for Clean Harbors in Canada was McCarthy Tétrault LLP, with a team led by David Armstrong, and including Robert Hansen and Kenneth Ng (corporate), Douglas Thomson (environmental), James Archer, Marc Lemieux and Mary Jeanne Phelan (banking), Gordon Sato, Oliver Hobday and Louis-Martin Dubé (real property), Jerald Wortsman and John Yuan (tax) and Oliver Borgers and Kathyrn Khamsi (competition and regulatory). Davis Malm & D’Agostine, P.C. acted for Clean Harbors in the U.S., with a team that included Michael Malm, John Chambliss and Jacqueline Weisman (corporate), Tony Norris (bankruptcy), John Serino and Deborah Breton (real estate) and Kenneth Mickiewicz (finance).

Safety-Kleen was represented in Canada by Douglas Knowles, Peter Murphy, Marc Mercier, Joseph Marin and Heidi Clark (insolvency, corporate and banking), Brian Carr and Zahra Nurmohamed (tax), Anneli LeGault (employment and labour) and Audrey Mak (pensions) of Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP, and by Stan Kugelmass of Blaney McMurtry LLP.