By virtue of 27+ years of legal experience combined with acting as Chairman and a director of several listed companies in diverse industries, Paul Fornazzari brings a wealth of practical experience related to corporate/commercial, securities, corporate governance, and capital markets matters. Paul’s clients benefit from his strong local and international legal and capital markets network.
A fluent Spanish speaker from Latin America, Paul has transactional experience and strong networks in almost all jurisdictions in that region.
Advising boards, executive teams, entrepreneurs and investors, Paul acts for domestic and foreign clients in various industries including mining, petroleum, technology, life sciences (including cannabis) and financial services. These Clients rely on his extensive experience in deal structuring, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, shareholder disputes, regulatory and stock exchange compliance and a wide variety of commercial arrangements.
Paul has a particular focus in lithium mining having been the founding Chair of Lithium Americas Corp, the first lithium brine company listed in Canada and assisted the Ontario Securities Commission (“OSC”) in formulating its policy on the application of NI 43-101 to lithium brine projects. Paul was also a founding director of Neo Lithium Inc., which was acquired for just under C$1B. He was the first to introduce the concept of an automatic securities trading plan for insiders in Ontario, and working with the OSC to formulate an acceptable form of such plan modelled after U.S. SEC Rule 10b5-1 plans.
He has presented on a variety of topics including creating and running a popular annual seminar on Latin American mining for the past 14 years held during PDAC, and written on Canadian mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance regulation, mining agreements, corporate governance, and CEO/CFO certification. Paul was a member of the TSX Venture Exchange’s Ontario and National Advisory Panels for 10 years, and is a member of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation.
Paul’s practice has been recognized by legal directories including, Who’s Who Legal, Best Lawyers and the Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory.
