Bio
Derek is a member of TGF’s Restructuring and Insolvency practice group and works closely with TGF’s Commercial Litigation team. Derek started his career with TGF as a summer student and an articling student where he gained exposure to both restructuring and litigation matters. Derek has gained experience in a variety of restructuring mandates, representing companies, financial institutions, court officers and other stakeholders in court proceedings and in out-of-court restructuring matters. In supporting TGF’s litigation team, Derek’s work has included significant litigation and arbitration matters within the infrastructure and construction fields, including on P3 projects.
Derek is known for his genuine, diplomatic approach to developing client relationships. As an oral advocate, he is thorough and versatile, and exercises his well-honed professionalism within each mandate.
Derek was an active and involved student throughout his legal education, and earned a spot on the Dean’s List. He also spent a term on exchange at the National University of Singapore where he was the recipient of the Thomson Reuters Prize in International Commercial Litigation. Derek was awarded the prestigious 2019 IIC Law Student Writing Award for his paper entitled “The “Key” to Success? KERPs in Canadian Restructuring Law”, which was published in the 2020 edition of the Journal of the Insolvency Institute of Canada.
Representative Mandates
As an associate at TGF, Derek has been part of a team representing clients in the following matters:
- Counsel to two aircraft lessors in connection with the complex CCAA proceedings of Lynx Air, which involved providing advice on novel issues arising from the intersection of Canadian insolvency law and the Cape Town Convention and Aircraft Protocol.
- Counsel for the first publicly funded university to be restructured pursuant to insolvency legislation in Canada.
- Counsel for a construction joint venture in a complex highway infrastructure dispute.
- Represented a lending syndicate in connection with a complex corporate reorganization.
- Successfully represented a commercial landlord in an appeal to the Court of Appeal for Ontario.