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REGIONAL WRAP-UP with input from sponsors Blake Cassels & Graydon LLP, McCarthy Tétrault LLP, and Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP. It will focus on three themes: un- derstanding your legal environment, business development and the art of self-promotion, and personal effec- tiveness. The focus is to give female lawyers a better understanding of the business of law and to equip them to become leaders in their profession. "It's an opportunity to learn more about the business of law," said partic- ipant Barbara Walker-Renshaw, a new partner at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. "It's very important at this stage in my career to learn how law firms work and how the business of law functions." Participants from the first session were mainly from large law firms, due in part to the $4,500 fee, but Krakauer said the aim is to bring in more women from smaller firms and, if the program succeeds, to offer financial assistance that would allow a variety of women lawyers to benefit. — GAIL J. COHEN L engthy legal battles surrounding Montreal-based chil- dren's animation firm Cinar Corp. have been anything but kids' play. The trouble started when it came to light in 2000 that the company's co-founders, Ronald Weinberg, his late wife Mi- cheline Charest, and former chief financial officer Hasanain Panju, transferred more than US$120 million of Cinar funds — then the equivalent of one year's revenues — to risky off- shore investment accounts in the Bahamas during the late 1990s without board approval. The financial scandal forced Weinberg and Charest to withdraw from all involvement with the company, leaving Cinar's stock to tumble and be delisted on the markets. Once the darling of Quebec's entertainment industry, the creator of the popular Caillou and Arthur cartoons was sold to a private Toronto investors group headed by Michael Hirsh, who started the Canadian cartoon channel Teletoon, in a US$144- million deal that closed in March 2004. The new owners along with the previous shareholders then launched a $116-million Quebec Superior Court civil lawsuit against Weinberg, Charest, and Panju in 2001. It was the beginning of an array of suits and countersuits that threatened to never end — until 40-year veteran Montreal lawyer Gordon Kugler, who has earned the reputation as the province's top settlement specialist, was called in by Weinberg just before Christmas. Following a marathon of negotiating sessions between law- yers for Cinar and Weinberg, some lasting into the wee hours, the senior partner at Kugler Kandestin LLP succeeded in bring- ing both sides to an out-of-court settlement that was approved by the court Feb. 13. Kugler acknowledged that the daunting task of reaching an agreement in such an acrimonious case in- volving "warring parties not even on speaking terms" was the toughest to date. He says with "so much distress, degree of animosity, and lack of faith between representatives for both sides that they couldn't even speak, an [amicable] settlement seemed impossible." Terms of the agreement — which involved the $116-million Cinar suit, an $8-million countersuit by Weinberg against the investors group, and what Kugler called "a lot of satellite cases that came into play and complicated matters, since the settle- ment could have unraveled at any time because of a side issue" 12 M AY 2008 www. C ANADIAN mag.com — are confidential, and neither side would even say exactly how many other related suits were affected by the 11th-hour deal. Had there not been an out-of-court settlement that mid- February day, an anticipated five-month-long trial on the Ci- nar suit would have begun. Mark Schrager of Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, who represented Cinar, and Weinberg lawyer Jean Lozeau, of Joli- Coeur Lacasse Geoffrion Jetté St-Pierre, both thanked Que- bec Superior Court Justice Jean-Yves Lalonde for his wisdom and patience since becoming the fourth judge, one year ago, to oversee the vast litigation. Fellow justice André Denis in December 2006 dismissed six civil suits brought on by Weinberg against other Cinar players over the years. Despite the unexpected settlement, the Cinar saga remains far from over, with other suits and countersuits still to be re- solved. There is the one between Cinar and John Xanthoudakis, former head of the scandal-plagued Norshield Financial Group (the Montreal firm with close ties to the Bahamian companies where the Cinar money was transferred in the late 1990s). There is another case before the courts in Ontario between Cinar and the Royal Bank of Canada — the bank that provided financial services to Norshield and the companies in the Bahamas. Montreal filmmaker Claude Robinson in 1996 filed a $2.53-million copyright infringement suit against four com- panies and six individuals, including Cinar and Weinberg/ Charest, alleging an idea for a children's series he developed and trademarked was stolen from him. As for the big February settlement, Schrager tells Canadian Lawyer the successful outcome of litigation like Cinar ulti- mately depends on three key issues: "The financial resources and corporate will of plaintiffs to actively pursue the litigation; plaintiffs' ability to make timely use of asset-freezing remedies such as Mareva injunctions and seizures before judgment; and the willingness of the judiciary to make resources readily and intensively available through case management and assigned judges." Schrager stresses, "The chances of these conditions coincid- ing in any one case is quite small." In this instance, they did. — MIKE KING mking@videotron.ca