Project Finance & Public-Private Partnerships

The Business Law Group at Perley-Robertson, Hill & McDougall LLP/s.r.l. are leading consultants on project finance ventures. We advise financial institutions, lenders, investment funds, developers, government agencies and sponsors on financing strategies across a diverse scope of industry sectors.

Project financing involves a host of disparate legal and business issues. As the largest independent firm in the National Capital Region, we offer the range of specialists needed to navigate any project, along with the flexibility and access to senior expertise of a smaller firm. We offer clarity and direction on financing strategies, business structuring tactics, venture capital and private placements, guidance on intellectual property, shareholder and contractual agreements, mergers and acquisitions, and government regulation, to a broad range of commercial, technological, real-estate, life sciences and public-private initiatives. We have leading expertise on the RFP/RFQ tendering process, from design to selection.

We equip our clients with the requisite knowledge to identify risk among production, revenue and political possibilities, and detail solutions to decrease liabilities. The success of a project can depend critically on timing; efficiency is a hallmark of our firm.

We are field-leaders in public-private partnerships. We helped lead the creation of the policy framework and legal structure for the Ontario Government’s participation in public-private partnerships, a complex and multi-faceted system which has been used for the construction of multiple hospitals in Ontario since.

Public-private partnerships can be born from a variety of needs. There are large-scale public projects where government looks for private partners to help in financing. There are business projects with public-good implications that may be offered public land or financing (which may also be intended to protect the public from private monopolization). Infrastructure from hospitals to convention centres may be built privately using public land. Whatever the genesis, such projects are usually complex and require an understanding not just of the project itself, but of the nature of, and restrictions on, the government agencies involved.

To facilitate public-private partnerships, we work closely with other advisors as required. Internally, we draw on the expertise of lawyers specializing in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, project finance, banking, real estate law, labour and employment law, pensions, competition, intellectual property, information technology law, environmental, administrative, regulatory and municipal law.