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2016/17
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LEXPERT 7
Abdel-Barr, Khaled S. Lawson Lundell LLP
(604) 631-9233 kabdel-barr@lawsonlundell.com
Mr. Abdel-Barr advises on a broad range of mining matters in all phases of
the mining cycle, as well as acquisitions and dispositions, strategic part-
nering and financing arrangements for mining projects both domestically
and internationally.
Abraham, QC, Brian E. Dentons Canada LLP
(604) 443-7134 brian.abraham@dentons.com
Mr. Abraham's practice involves all phases of mining, domestically and
internationally advising explorers, developers, producers, consultants,
prospectors, syndicates and financiers. He has experience participating in
background studies for mineral legislation in Canada and in foreign juris-
dictions. Mr. Abraham is a professional geologist and is active in mining
industry organizations.
Accursi, Chad Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP
(416) 860-2937 caccursi@casselsbrock.com
Mr. Accursi represents public mining companies and investment dealers
in a variety of transactions including public and private security offerings,
stock exchange listings, M&A, initial public offerings and general securities
compliance matters.
Ainley, William M. Davies Ward Phillips
& Vineberg LLP (416) 863-5509 wainley@dwpv.com
Mr. Ainley has acted for numerous resource companies and their
financial advisors in corporate finance and M&A transactions. He has
been lead counsel for bidders in many of Canada's largest, most complex
public resource company acquisitions, and has advised many foreign
purchasers in acquisitions of and substantial investments in major
Canadian resource companies.
Alexander, Merle C. Gowling WLG
(604) 891-2271 merle.alexander@gowlingwlg.com
Mr. Alexander practises Aboriginal resource law. He specializes
in the negotiation of interim accommodation, impact-benefit, project
participation and resource revenue-sharing agreements, within
Exploration, Mining and other resource industries.
Ali Khan, Abbas Bennett Jones LLP
(416) 777-5388 alikhana@bennettjones.com
Mr. Ali Khan practises in the capital markets and M&A areas,
with an emphasis on securities offerings, joint ventures, metal streams,
RTOs, acquisitions, dispositions and governance. He acts for clients
in a range of industries, particularly mining.
a hard cold economic lens, don't make sense unless you
have sustained commodities prices.
"I've been doing this for a lot of years. We do not have
sustained commodity prices, we have a roller coaster.
Sometimes at the very top, the apogee, you can have
US$4.30 copper. en it's US$2, or sometimes less. It
rolls up and down, up and down.
"Look at the dead man walking on the Toronto Stock
Exchange at the moment, particularly the venture [ex-
change], because you can't raise money for exploration
projects. You just can't. It's just impossible."
at has le the majority of junior explorers – the
lifeblood of any country's mining ecosystem – unable to
either sell their latest find or go to markets or their bank-
ers to finance the next one.
Some lawyers who work in the area are concerned
about what the majors will feed on once commodity
prices stabilize and the cycle ticks up again.
"A lot of people I talk to, senior mining people who've
been in the business for decades, are really worried about
things like the lack of investment in exploration," says
Marion Shaw, who heads the corporate finance and se-
curities group at Bull, Housser & Tupper LLP in Van-
couver. "ey say: 'What's going to happen? We don't
live in a post-mineral society. We need to explore, we
need to develop mines.'
"ere's this tremendous focus on cutting costs and
productivity and profitability. Shareholders don't seem
to have the appetite to have companies reinvesting in ex-
ploration — meanwhile a lot of these little exploration
companies are just dying on the vine."
A couple of years ago, she says, the large corporate-
commercial firms thought there would be plenty of
transactional work to do with the majors picking off as-
sets, says Shaw, "but mostly they're not."
Instead, increasingly, the big companies are waiting
for the smaller companies to get into a distress situation
– insolvency or receivership – before making a move.
"People didn't used to like to do it that way because
they thought it was complicated but actually the restruc-
turing statutes, at least in Canada or the US, can actu-
ally de-risk it a bit. If you can buy it out of a court pro-
ceeding, courts in restructuring have the power to make
pretty much any order they want."
Shaw, who frequently advises mining companies, calls
the state of relative deal paralysis "deeply worrisome on a
going-forward basis, because we're also seeing things like
intellectual capital leaving the industry.
"e old guys are retiring, new people aren't coming
in because it's not a good career move right now, and
companies aren't investing in management training.
We're going to come to a point where the old guys are
gone and nobody knows how to do this work well."
Shaw says there are lots of sellers and lots of buyers out
there with money, "but they're keeping it in their jeans.
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