Bio
John is a well-known and highly-regarded litigator with a robust practice that spans a range of industries. John focuses on oral advocacy for complex corporate/commercial litigation matters, including shareholder disputes, corporate fraud, commercial torts, professional negligence and the representation of financial institutions regarding security enforcement and priority disputes.
John has also acted as litigation counsel in connection with a wide variety of insolvency and restructuring proceedings. He has appeared at all levels of the Ontario Courts, and before the Federal Court and the Supreme Court of Canada. Prior to joining TGF as a partner and more recently as Counsel, John was a partner at a large national law firm.
In addition to his legacy as a successful litigator, John is known for developing innovative solutions to difficult legal issues, while ensuring that those solutions are both practical and achievable. His creativity and problem solving are key drivers of his exceptional client service.
John has spoken at a number of seminars and conferences, and to law students about the implications of the BCE case, which at the time was the world’s largest leveraged buy-out with an enterprise value of $52 billion. John appeared at the Supreme Court of Canada in the expedited BCE appeal.
Representative mandates:
- Counsel to Coopers & Lybrand in connection with its restructuring proceedings, and litigation counsel in connection with the successful defence of claims against Coopers with a value of approximately $400M.
- Worked with the TGF team as court-appointed counsel representing 630,000 policy holders in the demutualization of Economical Mutual Insurance Company. This was the first demutualization of a property and casualty company in Canada, and involved representing policy holders in negotiating the allocation of $2 billion in benefits among the policy holders.
- Counsel to a syndicate of lenders in an action against a major North American air carrier involving claims of approximately US$80M.
- Court-appointed litigation counsel to the Litigation Trustee of Cash Store Financial Services Inc.
- Acted on behalf of a committee of contesting bondholders in the BCE privatization, which involved the world’s largest leveraged buy-out with an enterprise value of $52 billion, ultimately appearing at the Supreme Court of Canada.
- Acted as litigation counsel to seven Canadian airport authorities in the dispute over entitlement to seize the aircraft of Canada 3000, culminating in a successful appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
- Counsel to the Federal Government in relation to numerous mining insolvencies, including Curragh Inc., Anvil Range and Royal Oak Mines.
- Representing the debtors in the recognition under the CCAA of foreign main proceedings involving Hartford Computer Hardware, Inc. and under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.
- Debtor counsel in the CCAA filing of Farley WinDoor Ltd.
- Counsel to the debtors in the CCAA proceeding involving Ghana Gold Corp.
- Counsel to environmental regulators in connection with numerous mining insolvencies.