Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
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(Top) Tank at Enbridge's Edmonton Terminal. (Right) Pipes and valves at Enbridge's Edmonton Terminal. acquisitions. He is one of two attorneys in the operations division for liquids pipelines in the U.S. There are about a dozen lawyers in the various divisions across the U.S. Kanvik co-ordinates frequently with the Canadian legal teams, especially on large projects such as pipelines extend- ing from Edmonton into the Chicago area. "I'm not practising Canadian law and they're not practising American law. We respect the border as a good dividing line of our responsibilities, but in order to get the project approved, in the ground, and operational on a budg- et and on a timely basis, I have to have at least a rudimentary understanding of what the laws are in Canada, and the reverse is true," says Kanvik. "We need to make sure we have our details lined up and in agreement." When you delve down into those details, there are some significant dif- ferences between the two legal systems. The National Energy Board in Canada has a much larger role in regulating the pipeline system in Canada than the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission does in the U.S. However, if you change the commodity from crude oil to natu- ral gas, that disparity is much smaller. But there are also differences in terms of litigation, such as evidentiary rules. I say to this day that I was ultimately tricked into it by the writers of L.A. Law — Arnie Becker sure seemed to have an exciting lifestyle. TYLER ROBINSON Recently, Enbridge permitted a number of large pipelines as an expan- sion of its system. While some states allow imminent domain authority by statute, others, like Minnesota, require you to file an application with a public utilities or public services commission to get permission to build a pipeline 42 • DECEMBER 2009/JANUARY 2010 INHOUSE and then go through a separate process to get site authority. "In Minnesota we're asking for per- mission every step of the way," says Kanvik. "On the natural gas side, our FERC regulations are all-encompass- ing. If we get permission from FERC we can build it and use imminent domain