Background

Jim Elder is a partner in our Toronto office. He was admitted to the Ontario Bar in 1987. He attended law school at the University of Western Ontario and is a graduate of the CICA's In-Depth Tax Course. Jim serves as National Leader of the Firm's Private Company Group and as manager of the Corporate Commercial Group in Toronto.

Areas of Practice

• Jim began his legal career in the area of taxation, with an emphasis on corporate reorganizations and transaction related tax issues. After several years in tax, he transferred to corporate/commercial law, where he has practised ever since.
• His practice covers a wide range, including mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, commercial agreements, shareholder relations, joint ventures, partnerships and corporate governance.
• In recent years, he has taken an interest in the laws governing partnerships and joint ventures, and has assisted clients with numerous related matters, including joint venture and partnership syndications, partnership dissolutions, and professional partnerships.

Professional Experience

• Has structured numerous joint venture and strategic alliance arrangements, including shareholder agreements, partnerships, co-ownerships and joint marketing arrangements.
• Has worked extensively with foreign clients in setting up and running Canadian operations, including advice on matters of commercial law, relations with suppliers, customers, distributors and employees, and establishment of joint ventures and other relationships with Canadian partners.
• Has extensive experience with mergers and acquisitions, management buy-outs, divestitures, joint ventures, shareholder relations, partnerships, promotion agreements, employee stock option and remuneration plans and other commercial matters.
• Has advised clients concerning advertising compliance matters.
• Has acted in connection with the purchase, sale and financing of automobile dealerships.
• Has acted on numerous financing and credit restructuring transactions.
• Has acted in connection with various international and domestic distribution, licensing and warehousing arrangements.
• Has acted in connection with the establishment of non-share capital corporations and the registration of the same as charities, and in connection with the establishment, structuring and operation of equity and non-equity Clubs.
• Has advised clients and insurers concerning the duties and liabilities of directors and officers.

Professional and Community Activities

• Adjunct Professor, Mergers & Acquisitions, Faculty of Law, University of Western Ontario
• Director of Lawyers' International Food Enterprise, a non-profit organization dedicated to the relief of childhood poverty
• 2011 Lexpert Zenith Award, Philanthropy (International Impact)
• Member of the Canadian Bar Association
• Member of the Canadian Tax Foundation
• Member of the Toronto Board of Trade
• Has prepared various articles concerning directors' and officers' liability and is the author of Mutual Assistance in Tax Matters, Recent Developments in Bilateral and Multilateral Relations.
• Member of the board of a number of Canadian private corporations.