Legal Research

Heenan Blaikie is one of Canada?s leading law firms, with close to 500 lawyers in nine Canadian cities including Toronto, Montréal, Calgary and Vancouver. We are also one of the youngest large firms in the country – literally. Our firm was founded just 35 years ago, with three lawyers (all still active) in Montréal. Growth has been spliced into our DNA. So has the entertainment industry. In fact, when we opened our offices in Toronto (1989) and Vancouver (1991), the first offices to be opened outside of Quebec, it was to better serve our film and television clients in those cities.

Since the Seventies, our firm grew alongside the Canadian media and entertainment industries, as they developed new markets and explored new technologies. Our team ? the largest team of entertainment lawyers in the country ? combines talents and experience from intellectual property, labour and employment, business law, taxation and litigation, advising clients in all entertainment media including film, television, new media, video games, theatre, book publishing, and music. We are also work with the other practice groups at Heenan Blaikie, especially in the corporate finance and M&A area.

Our clients include both Canadian and international participants in the entertainment industries. We routinely represent producers, including major studios, mini-majors, and independents, distributors, broadcasters, internet service providers, video game developers and publishers, financial institutions, other commercial lenders and equity investors, software publishers, special effects and post-production houses, as well as multimedia and animation studios. We also represent many well-known directors, writers, producers, performers, musicians and other successful artists.

Our areas of specialty include:

• International and interprovincial co-productions

• International co-ventures
• Film, television and corporate financing, including project financing, slate financing and syndicated financing
• International and domestic tax
• Telecommunications and broadcasting
• Production contracts
• Distribution and sales agency contracts
• Broadcast licenses
• Errors and omissions insurance
• Copyright and trade-marks
• Merchandising and licensing
• Music recording, publishing, labels, licensing and management
• New technologies in media and entertainment
• Litigation
• Labour & employment law
• Competition, trade and Canadian heritage requirements
• Immigration.

We’re delighted to be able to explain some of the challenges of this area of the law to the Slaw community, over the next week.