David F.W. Cohen

David Cohen is a senior practitioner in the firm's Toronto office, practising corporate and commercial financing, restructuring and insolvency law in a domestic and cross-border context. He is an executive member of the National Financial Services Industry Group and practice coordinator for the Distressed M&A Practice at Gowlings LLP.

David has transactional experience in:

REPRESENTATIVE WORK

David has recently been involved in the following matters:

• acting for CIBC, as senior secured creditor and DIP Lender in the CCAA proceedings for the Bowring / Bombay / Benix group of retail enterprises.
• acting as lead counsel for a syndicate of three major Canadian banks on the restructuring of a $100 Million term and operating loan to a retailer;
• acting for a major Canadian bank in the amendment of a $50 Million real estate loan in British Columbia.
• acting as lead counsel for a shareholder dispute among two shareholder groups touching on both restructuring of the business and oppression remedies.
• acting for a major Canadian bank in a new $75 Million secured financing of a service business.
• acting for a major Canadian bank in a new $25 Million secured financing of a manufacturing business.
• acting as lead counsel for a major Canadian bank in the restructuring of a $50 loan to a service business in the health sector.
• acting as lead counsel for a major Canadian bank in the restructuring of a $50 Million loan to a manufacturing business in the food sector.
• acted for a major customer of an oil and gas producer in Alberta based CCAA proceedings;
• acted as lead counsel for Korean Resource Corporation (KORES) and a consortium of major Korean corporations in their ongoing acquisition of a 90% interest in and control of Minera y Metalúrgica del Boleo, S.A.P.I. de C.V. (the Boleo Mine located in Santa Rosalie, Baja, Mexico). As lead counsel our work included the coordination, negotiation and documentation of a series of complex transactions with Baja Mining Corporation, the normalization of existing project finance and matters relating to off-take from the project. The Boleo Project capital cost is projected to exceed $1.8 Billion. (2012-13);
• currently acting as lead counsel for several major Canadian financial institutions in respect of the negotiation and establishment of a variety of mid-market commercial loans in a wide variety of industrial sectors including the retail, clothing manufacturing, financial service, and other sectors. (ongoing).

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

David is a member of the CCH Corporate Law Advisory Board and was a visiting instructor in Bankruptcy Law at Osgoode Hall Law School for five years up to 2001.

David currently serves on the Turnaround Management Association Board of Trustees and was a member of the 2014 International Executive Board of Directors of the Turnaround Management Association and served as the co-chair of the highly successful TMA Annual Convention held in Toronto in October of 2014. David has also served as TMA Global's corporate secretary, a member of its executive operating committee, VP membership and member of the Futures Task Force, the Sponsorship Task Force, the Awards Committee for the Turnmaround Hall of Fame in 2013 and the Nominations Committee.

Prior to joining the International Board, he served for six years as a director of the TMA (Toronto Chapter) Board in a number of executive positions, including vice president, secretary and co-chair of the Programs Committee. David was the chair of the Canadian Bar Association National Bankruptcy and Insolvency Section Executive for a two-year term ending in September 2004.

ARTICLES, PAPERS & PRESENTATIONS

David has authored the CCH Ontario Corporate Law Guide chapter on Liquidation & Dissolution and has written and presented for the Canadian Bar Association on insolvency law topics, written for the National Insolvency Review and written for the CCH Corporate Law Brief on corporate law topics. He is a member of the editorial board for Butterworth’s National Insolvency Review newsletter.

David has chaired the Canadian Institute’s annual insolvency super conference for eleven years up to January 2011. He has also spoken at and written for other conferences including for the TMA, CAIRP, and the Canadian Institute on a broad range of lending, restructuring and insolvency law topics.