Canadian Lawyer

22 www.canadianlawyermag.com last part mirrors what Lalanne describes as a core value of the firm: "Let's get the deal done. "We help them find ways to get a proj- ect done and don't focus on complications," he says. De Grandpré Chait is the result of the 1999 merger between De Grandpré Godin and Chait Amyot, with more than 90 years of experience in Quebec's business community. The firm was praised for its "expertise, great jurists, customer service, friendly and professional team, quality service, reasonable rates, solid knowledge and reputation in law." Core practice areas and notable mandates: real estate; taxation; litigation; construction; business law, municipal law and expropriation; insolvency, bankruptcy and restructuration Assisted the Timbercreek Mortgage Ser- vicing Inc. in the acquisition and financing of two newly constructed senior residences and a condominium building in Montréal for $134,600,000 Since 1998, worked on the largest class ac- tion suit in Canadian legal history involving the Québec Council on Tobacco and Health and the three major Canadian cigarette man- ufacturers. On March 1, 2019, five judges of the Quebec of Court of Appeal rendered a unanimous judgment of almost $17 billion against the tobacco companies for having misled the public as to the dangers of tobacco. Represented a client involved in the biggest tax fraud case in Quebec and successfully ob- tained a Jordan ruling in the file of Revenu Québec against Métaux Kitco Represented a subsidiary of Crofton Moore who had been expropriated from a shopping centre due to the extension of the Montréal Metro Blue Line, a $3-billion public infra- structure project Star alumni: Québec Superior Court justices Christiane Alary, Martin Castonguay, Carol Cohen, Pierre Labelle and Yves Poirier, and Court of Québec justices Normand Amyot, Bouchard; Quebec Superior Court judges in- cluding Isabelle Breton, France Bergeron, Ni- cole Tremblay, Pierre Simard, Carl Lachance, Robert Dufresne, Jacques Babin, Martin Dallaire, Michaël Cain and Charles Ouellet 5 DE GRANDPRÉ CHAIT LLP DGCHAIT.COM Maintaining its position in the top five of the Quebec regional firms, managing partner Eric Lalanne says the firm is moving into expan- sion mode again. "We went through a generational transition in the past five years, so we compacted and downsized by 10 per cent of our team," he says. "But right now, we're in a rebuilding mode, fo- cused on our niche being properly serviced; now we need to expand." With 60 lawyers in its Montreal office, one survey respondent described the counsel as "incredibly smart and down to earth." That Core practice areas and notable mandates: commercial and corporate affairs; real estate law banking and finance; labour and employ- ment law; transportation; municipal affairs; environment law; aboriginal law; public ad- ministration Aboriginal law team worked on several pre-development agreements between First Nations and mining companies with regard to the exploration and mining in northern Quebec Involved in negotiating various social and economic partnership agreements for First Nations groups Obtained several favourable rulings in high-profile defamation, labour law, educa- tion law, procedural law, contractual law and constitutional lawsuits Won a Superior Court ruling in the highly publicized case Investissements Novacap et TELUS Québec inc. c. VIDÉOTRON Star alumni: Canadian ambassador to France and former Quebec premier Lucien FEATURES TOP 10 QUEBEC REGIONAL FIRMS

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