Blakes lawyers are at the forefront of providing context-specific advice to clients on complex Canadian corporate governance matters.
We regularly advise issuers and their boards of directors on a variety of foundational and strategic matters. Our exceptional cross-disciplinary, national practice is dedicated to understanding and shaping the requirements of corporate governance legislation and the rules and policies of Canadian securities regulatory authorities and stock exchanges. We also have best practices and views published by influential commentators such as proxy advisory firms, institutional investor governance groups and rankings of governance practices).
Our Corporate Governance group provides market-leading, tailored advice to public and private companies on establishing and improving corporate governance structures and practices, compliance with applicable regulatory reporting, disclosure requirements, restrictions and best practices, shareholder communications, directors' and officers' duties, insurance and indemnity matters, executive compensation, the voluntary adoption of measures such as say-on-pay and ESG reporting, board composition and diversity, climate change, cybersecurity, privacy, and other hot-button issues, as well as overall risk management.
In addition, our lawyers advise on contested corporate transactions (including preparedness for and defence against proxy contests), corporate and securities litigation, shareholder proposals and other stakeholder communications, and internal investigations (including whistleblower reports). They also act on our clients’ behalf in response to external investigations and regularly serve as special counsel to boards of directors and special committees on transformational transactions.
