BCE Emergis Inc.

Six major Canadian financial institutions have agreed to join together to form e-route Inc., the first full integrated system for electronic bill presentment in Canada, and to enter into a deal with BCE Emergis Inc. to supply their new entity with technical services built on BCE Emergis, Microsoft Canada and Transpoint technologies. Canada Trust, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Mouvement des Caisses Desjardins, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada and TD Financial Group continued a recent pattern of retaining a single outside law firm to represent their collective interests in setting up the joint undertaking and relying upon their in-house legal departments to represent their individual interests. The financial institutions turned to the Toronto office of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt to structure their ownership and ongoing operating interests in e-route and to represent e-route in the BCE Emergis deal. John Kazanjian is leading the Osler team, which consists of Richard Coleman (technology) Andrew MacDougall (corporate) and Peter Glossop (regulatory issues). The principal participants in the legal departments of the six financial institutions are David Canton, Senior Corporate Counsel and Chris Jepson, Corporate Counsel, Canada Trust; Eva Kaminski, Senior Counsel and Kimberley McVittie, Senior Counsel, Information Technology, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce; Pierre Sanche, Counsel, Mouvement des Caisses Desjardins; Martin Côté, Senior Counsel, National Bank of Canada; Edward Rowan-Legg, Assistant General Counsel and Ian Penhale, Senior Counsel, Royal Bank of Canada; and Adriana Groskopf, Associate Vice President and Solicitor, TD Financial Group. BCE Emergis retained Stikeman Elliott to represent it in connection with the e-route technology services agreement, valued by their client at $1 bn. . Sydney Isaacs led the Stikeman’s team working with associates Peter Castiel in Montreal and Martin Langlois in Toronto. New general counsel Monique Mercier joined the BCE Emergis team during the transaction.