Executive Summary:  In the presentation below, the authors review key legal (including corporate, commercial, tax and regulatory) and business issues that arise when negotiating and drafting acquisition agreements in Canada which, except for the Canadian regulatory issues, have universal application. The presentation focuses primarily on negotiated acquisition agreements of assets or shares of private companies and does not address securities regulatory issues governing the acquisition of public companies, except as they apply to the issuance or transfer of securities of public companies in the context of a such  acquisitions.  Many of the legal, regulatory and business issues that arise in negotiated acquisitions of the assets or shares of private corporations – whether stand-alone private entities or subsidiaries of publicly held-corporations – are of equal relevance in the negotiation and drafting of acquisition agreements for the shares of publicly traded entities.

Negotiating Share and Asset Purchase Agreements: Fundamental Considerations