The litigation team is a core component of our firm. Each of the partners in the litigation team has extensive experience in the practice in Ontario, often gained at well-known firms. This experience and knowledge is put to good use in the provision of litigation and dispute resolution advice to clients in a broad range of industries, without the accompanying overhead and expenses that are attached to such advice at larger firms.
Our practice includes the areas of contractual and commercial disputes, shareholder and owner/operator issues, litigation stemming from the purchase and sale of businesses, employment litigation, estate litigation, advising landlords and property owners, injunctions, secured transaction disputes, bankruptcy and insolvency issues, franchise disputes, and corporate restructurings, and includes arbitration, trial and appellate appearances at all levels of the Ontario court system.
Perhaps unlike other firms, we recognize that the litigation practice begins with the provision of advice on avoiding disputes in the first place, at the time of contract finalization, or the beginning of any business relationship. We provide advice and solutions on disputes that do occur, through the use of litigation or arbitration procedures, when settlement or other dispute resolution mechanisms are not possible or appropriate. We represent clients of differing sizes in differing industries, from small early stage corporations in emerging industries, to large, established firms in mature industries. Given the size of our firm we are able to provide timely, appropriate litigation advice to these clients without conflict with major financial or other large institutional organizations.
Recent commercial, employment, and estate litigation matters, and insolvency briefs that Woolgar VanWiechen Ketcheson Ducoffe LLP has been retained on include:
- Acting for suppliers and commercial partners of Air Canada, Stelco, Quebecor World and other debtors in recent court-supervised restructurings
- Acting successfully for corporations in defence of a claim stemming from the purchase of a business
- Obtaining injunctive relief preventing departing employees of a client from harming the client
- Successfully claiming payment of amounts owing on contracts of supply
- Acting for shareholders claiming oppressive and unfair conduct against them by corporations and others, and defending allegations of oppressive and unfair conduct made against corporate clients by shareholders
- Acting for an insolvent bottled water business in its successful restructuring
- Acting for a large U.S. media company in defence of a claim against it by producer-suppliers
- Acting for a director/officer of an insurer in defence of claims made against the board of the insurer
- Acting for charitable organizations in trust and bequest disputes
The principals of our litigation team are:
Christopher J. Cosgriffe
Kimberly T. Morris
Jamie VanWiechen