Leanne M. Williams

Bio

Leanne has been recognized as a leading practitioner by The Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory and Expert Guides in the areas of restructuring and insolvency.

Leanne practises exclusively in these areas including workouts, refinancing, receiverships, bankruptcies and the enforcement of creditors’ rights generally.

Leanne regularly represents charter banks and financial institutions across a broad spectrum of industries. She also represents court officers such as trustees in bankruptcy, receivers and CCAA monitors.

Representative Mandates

• Counsel to Carriage Hills and Carriage Ridge timeshare resorts in their Court-supervised restructuring involving over 11,000 timeshare members.
• Counsel to the Unsecured Creditors' Committee in the US Chapter 11 proceeding of Bumble Bee and the Canadian CCAA proceedings of Clover Leaf.
• Counsel to Business Development Bank of Canada in the CCAA proceedings of North American Fur Auctions.
• Counsel to Stantive Technologies Group in their CCAA proceedings.
• Counsel to JTI-Macdonald Corp., one of the largest tobacco companies in Canada, in its proceedings under the CCAA with a goal to achieve a global resolution of the myriad of litigation claims against it exceeding $500 billion.  The two other largest tobacco companies have also filed for CCAA protection resulting in unprecedented industry-wide proceedings.
• Counsel to BDC Capital Inc. in the Quebec CCAA restructuring of BioAmber Inc., a sustainable chemicals company.
• Counsel to Whirlpool Canada in the CCAA restructuring of Sears Canada.
• Counsel to BDO Canada Limited as court-appointed receiver of Emmanuel Village Residence Inc.
• Represented Endurance Energy Ltd. in connection with its proceedings under the CCAA, an Alberta-based oil and gas production company, which successfully sold its assets as part of its restructuring efforts.
• Counsel to the court-appointed Monitor of the Mobilicity group of companies.
• Advisor to U.S. Steel in the restructuring of U.S. Steel Canada.
• Counsel to the Syndicate of Lenders to Allen-Vanguard Corporation, a publicly-traded international military defense corporation, during its restructuring through the CCAA and recapitalization as a private entity.
• Counsel to Flextronics Corporation, Nortel’s largest supplier and significant creditor, during the CCAA restructuring of Nortel.
• Represents Hollinger and certain of its subsidiaries in its CCAA filing in Canada.
• Advisor to the court-appointed Monitor of AbitibiBowater.
• Represented the Monitor of a retailer, Athletes World, in its restructuring and successful Plan of Arrangement under the CCAA.
• Counsel to the Monitor of a tobacco company, JTI Macdonald, until its successful emergence from the CCAA.
• Acted as counsel to the court-appointed Interim Receiver of Mosaic Group, a cross-border marketing and technology company, during the liquidation of its assets for the benefit of its creditors.
• Represented the largest secured creditor of Canada 3000 during the liquidation of the airline’s assets.
• Acted as counsel to the largest unsecured creditor of Irwin Toy during the liquidation of its assets.