Betty DelBianco, Law’84: The Litigation Manager wins high-stakes class action case
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“We assembled a good team and we were very thorough in our diligence. You need to set a strategy and stick to it.”
etty DelBianco, the winner of this year’s CGCA for Litigation Management, successfully managed a complex securities class action that went all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada. The lawsuit alleged that Celestica’s public filings about its restructuring from January 2005 to January 2007 contained misleading statements that caused shareholders to suffer financial damages. According to DelBianco, Executive VP, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer at Celestica, it was the complexity of the litigation and its multi-jurisdictional aspect that garnered her the award. “This was a long-running, cross-border, securities class action. In Canada the case went to the Supreme Court, where we were ultimately successful. In the U.S., we pursued a different strategy as a result of differences in the issues as well as differences in the two countries’ laws and procedural rules.” DelBianco attributes the successful outcome to several factors. “We assembled a good team and we were very thorough in our diligence. You need to set a strategy and stick to it. Certainly I had the support of my CEO and my board of directors. “To be a successful general counsel,” DelBianco says, “you need to have a good connection to the business, be tied into the overall company strategy, be pragmatic, and always look at how what you’re doing fits into the bigger picture.” She adds that she’s motivated by wanting to do a good job and contribute value to the business. While she’s found no obstacles on the job, personally, she says she’s always in one ongoing battle. “As any general counsel will tell you, you’re constantly competing for resources with the rest of the company so you never have the budget you’d love to have.” She got just what she needed during her time at Queen’s Law, though. “I got a tremendous legal education at Queen’s,” says DelBianco, who is now a member of her alma mater’s Dean’s Council. “It certainly helped my career. I was lucky enough to have fantastic professors like Dave Mullan and Nick Bala, as well as extraordinary classmates in Law’84 who’ve become life-long friends.”
OCTOBER 2016 - 17