Jessup Sean Van Helden, Emily Beaton, Freedom-Kai Phillips and Bruce Lee-Shanok put on a terrific performance in London, Ont. They
were in second place at the end of the preliminary rounds and faced off against the University of Ottawa in the final. Freedom and Bruce lost this very hotly contested round, and Ottawa went on to place first overall in the moot. Also, thanks goes out to the many judges, practitioners and faculty who helped the team by sitting for practice benches. In the Jessup, perhaps more than any other moot, the quality of a team’s performance is directly tied to how rigorously the mooters were tested in practice. • (From left) Emily Beaton, Bruce Lee-Shanok, Sean Van Helden, Professor Robert Currie and Freedom Kai-Phillips.
Canadian Corporate/ Securities (From left) Justice Kathryn N. Feldman (Ontario Court of Appeal), Chrissy Giannoulias and Bill O’Reilly (from Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP), Danielle Toigo, Ken Jennings, Jennifer Hodgins, Dan McGruder, Professor Mohamed Khimji (Photo courtesy of Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP)
The Dalhousie Law School team of Jennifer Hodgins, Ken Jennings, Dan McGruder and Danielle Toigo beat 12 other law schools from across Canada for their first-place finish. The moot took place at the Federal Court of Appeal in Toronto on March 6 and 7. The team’s faculty supervisor, Mohamed Khimji, said, “For me, the best part was watching four young people transform themselves from students into professional advocates in just two months’ time. The University can be very proud of them as they certainly represented us well.” The problem argued by the team was designed to test the boundaries of the recent landmark decision by the Supreme Court of Canada in the BCE bondholder litigation. It involved a proposed transaction whereby a corporation would “spinoff” one of its subsidiaries to its shareholders by way of a plan
of arrangement and the attempt by certain holders of notes to prevent court approval of the transaction. The final round was argued before Justices Kathryn N. Feldman, Robert A. Blair, and John I. Laskin of the Ontario Court of Appeal, along with Lucien Bouchard, PC, GOQ (former premier of Quebec) and Lawrence Ritchie (vice-chair of the OSC). The only competition of its kind in Canada, the annual Corporate/Securities Moot provides an opportunity for top students from Canadian law schools to debate current legal issues in corporate and securities law with senior practitioners from Toronto law firms and corporations, regulators from the Ontario Securities Commission and judges. The moot is sponsored and administered by the Toronto law firm Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg. • Hearsay 2009
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