Chris Hersh is a business law partner based in Toronto and Canadian head of Norton Rose Fulbright’s antitrust and competition practice. He provides strategic counsel to clients on all aspects of competition law, including mergers and acquisitions, criminal matters, abuse of dominance, marketing and advertising, as well as pricing and distribution issues. He also regularly works with international clients to obtain approvals under the "net benefit," national security, and cultural sector review provisions of the Investment Canada Act. In addition to his transactional and regulatory practice, he has an active competition litigation practice and acts for clients involved in matters before the Competition Tribunal, trans-border criminal investigations/prosecutions, as well as price-fixing class actions. In addition to his practice, he regularly writes and speaks in Canada and abroad on all aspects of competition. He has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Western Ontario Faculty of Law and as a guest lecturer at the Osgoode Hall Law School LLM and Queen's University economics program. Additionally, he is active in the CBA competition law, the ABA antitrust section, and the IBA Competition.
On September 30, 2015, BSM Technologies Inc. and Webtech Wireless Inc. completed the previously announced transaction by way of a court approved plan of arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia). Pursuant to the plan of arrangement, Webtech has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of BSM and all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Webtech were transferred to BSM in consideration for the issuance by BSM of 2.136 common shares of BSM and a cash payment of $0.52 for each Webtech share.
On July 10, 2015, Newmarket Gold Inc. (Newmarket) and Crocodile Gold Corp. (Crocodile Gold) combined by way of a court approved plan of arrangement under the <i>Business Corporations Act (Ontario)</i>, creating a new gold industry consolidator solidly positioned to acquire high quality gold assets in the world’s most desirable mining jurisdictions. The combined entity has been named Newmarket Gold Inc. and its common shares are trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the new symbol “NMI”. The transaction is valued at approximately $185 million.
In Canada’s largest M&A transaction of 2014, US-based Burger King Worldwide Inc. acquired Tim Hortons Inc. in a $12.5-billion deal that created a global powerhouse quick service restaurant company based in Canada. Combined, the company now has more than 18,000 restaurants in 100 countries.
Antofagasta plc, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Antofagasta Investment Company Limited, acquired Duluth Metals Limited by way of a plan of arrangement at a price of $0.45 per share, for total cash consideration of approximately $52.8 million. Immediately following the acquisition, Antofagasta funded the purchase of $30-million aggregate principal amount convertible debentures, being all of Duluth’s outstanding convertible debentures.
NIBE Industrier AB (publ) of Sweden acquired all of the issued and outstanding shares of WaterFurnace Renewable Energy, Inc. pursuant to a plan of arrangement under the Canada Business Corporations Act, for cash consideration of around $378 million.
Davide Campari-Milano S.p.A. (Campari) acquired Forty Creek Distillery Ltd., a leading independently owned spirits company in Canada, the producer of the award winning Forty Creek range of premium and fast growing Canadian whiskies.
