Infrastructure

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Clients say: “They are not over-lawyerly and look for common solutions. They have a whole team of strong practitioners."...“My overall impression of the team is very high. They are creative, resourceful and deliver high quality.”

Worldwide government austerity and the universal drive to reduce public debt have placed enormous pressure on the public sector to reduce spending. At the same time, however, decades of depreciation or even neglect have left infrastructure, including roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, power facilities and other public properties in urgent need of repair or replacement.

These combined challenges are creating an unprecedented opportunity for the infrastructure industry to emerge with solutions. Because of our extensive experience in virtually the entire spectrum of projects, leading players in the public infrastructure market repeatedly turn to Blakes to assist them with their infrastructure development projects.

Acting for both domestic and international clients and all manner of infrastructure industry participants, our industry team has played a significant role in most of the public-private partnership (P3) and alternative financing and procurement (AFP) projects in Canada. Our proficiencies in these areas include expertise in corporate/commercial law, real estate, construction, tax and project finance, as well as in the more specialized areas such as procurement, environmental and aboriginal law.

Drawing from a diverse pool of expertise, we have acted as project counsel on an extraordinarily broad range of infrastructure projects. A representative list would include major initiatives involving roads, bridges, transportation, transit, recreational and other public buildings, energy and pipelines, water, wastewater, and communications.

Our infrastructure clients especially value our integrated approach to their projects. We operate on a global level, sharing information, resources and opportunities. Through our network of offices, we are able to make all of our resources and expertise available to our clients and provide them with truly seamless “one-stop shopping” legal service.

Representative Matters:

Hospitals/Health Care

• Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM) – Representing a consortium for the design, construction, financing and maintenance of a new university hospital complex of international calibre.  The project was awarded the 2011 North American Project Bond Deal of the Year Award, presented by Project Finance International, and the 2011 Overall North America Project Finance Deal of the Year Grand Jury Award. 

• Gordie Howe International Bridge Project – Advising Bridging North America General Partnership on the $5.7-billion (nominal value) project to design, build, finance and maintain an international bridge and border crossing over the Detroit River.
• A25 Highway – Acted for the lenders to the successful bidding consortium on the design,
  construction, financing and operation of the A25 Highway located in the province of Quebec. The project was awarded the North American PPP Deal of the Year by Project Finance Magazine and the Silver Award for Project Financing by the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnership (CCPPP).

• Sea-to-Sky Highway – Acted for the initial sponsor of the S2S Transportation Group that was selected as the preferred proponent for the major Sea-to-Sky Highway improvement project and which received the CCPPP Gold Award in the project financing category for 2005. Blakes also acted in the sale of equity in the project by that sponsor in 2010.

Recreational and Other Public Buildings

• Toronto 2015 Pan American and Parapan American Games – Acting for Infrastructure Ontario with respect to the construction of multiple sporting venues for the Toronto 2015 Pan American and Parapan American Games.

Energy

• Ontario Nuclear Procurement – Acting for Infrastructure Ontario on all aspects of the Nuclear Procurement Project. The competitive process is seeking a vendor to build a new, two-unit nuclear power plant at Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington site.  This is one of the largest government procurement processes undertaken in Canadian history.
• Seigneurie de Beaupré Wind Projects – Counselled the lenders (KFW Ipex-Bank GmbH, Deutsche Bank AG, Canada Branch, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation of Canada, Mizuho Corporate Bank, Ltd., Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, New York Branch and Siemens Financial Ltd.) in the C$725-million project financing of the 272MW Seigneurie de Beaupré Wind projects, located 60km north-east of Quebec City.

Water/Wastewater

• Water, Wastewater and Solid Waste – Advised the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and several governments (Nepal, South Africa, Jordan, Mozambique, Zambia, India, Yemen and the Philippines) on private-sector participation in the management, operation and maintenance of water and wastewater systems.

Members of the Infrastructure group have consistently ranked as leaders in their respective fields in the following publications:

• Chambers Global: The World's Leading Lawyers for Business
• Chambers Canada: Canada’s Leading Lawyers for Business
• The Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory
• Lexpert Special Edition on Canada’s Leading Infrastructure Lawyers
• Who’s Who Legal: Government Contracts
• Who’s Who Legal: Canada (Government Contracts)
• Who’s Who Legal (Government Contracts)
• The Legal 500 Canada
• The Best Lawyers in Canada (Public Finance Law)