50 www.canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse
Greg Southam, a partner in the infrastruc-
ture/P3 and commercial real estate practices
at Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP,
encourages clients to reach out to public
authorities to voice their concerns.
"There is actually a lot of opportunity for
those folks that are sitting in the in-house
chairs to be a significant participant in those
discussions on how we are going to approach
these transactions on an ongoing basis to
ensure that the public is still adhering to the
principal of a P3 deal in terms of time, budget
and offloading risk to the right person," he says.
Vehicle delivery is often an issue in LRT
projects, particularly when either the public or
the private sector shoulders all the risk, so
sharing risk can be beneficial. In one recent
example, Southam and his team at the firm
worked for a client bidding on the Trillium Line
LRT project in Ottawa. When there was a delay
with vehicle delivery, the team worked with the
City of Ottawa and its counsel to develop a risk
model where the private and public sectors
shared the new vehicle delivery risk, with the
existing vehicles running on the newly
constructed line extension to achieve an
interim completion.
One significant mandate that Platteel
recently worked on with ACS as part of a
consortium was the Gordie Howe International
Bridge, a particularly challenging project due
to its cross-border nature. The project involved
many stakeholders, two different laws and
currencies and political opposition on the U.S.
side for funding. ACS took advice from its U.S
operations to find out what risk could be taken
on the U.S. side, while environmental concerns
relating to contamination liability were also
overcome with U.S. legal advice.
"We have been calling for changes to
the contracts, and other contractors have
either called for change or just bowed
out of the market."
Andrés Durán, EllisDon Corporation
INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT
