Bell Canada Sells Interest in Certen and Extends Outsourcing Agreement

In 2001, Bell Canada and Amdocs Ltd. invested $200 million to create Certen Inc., which was formed to implement a customer billing platform for Bell Canada. On July 1, 2003, Bell Canada sold its interest in Certen to Amdocs for $89 million.

As part of this transaction, Bell Canada and Certen extended the term of their billing operations outsourcing agreement to December 2010, under which Certen will continue to provide billing functions for Bell Canada. Bell Canada will be responsible for oversight of the billing functions provided by Certen, project management and business analysis related to billing system modernization and development. Amdocs and Certen will continue to develop an integrated modernized billing platform to replace Bell’s legacy systems under a separate software development agreement with Bell Canada. The transaction involved obtaining the approval of the Minister of Industry under the Investment Canada Act, as well as the transition to Bell Canada of more than 180 Certen employees and contractors.

Amdocs was represented by in-house counsel Michael Bricker and Ehud Ben Yemini; in Canada, by Goodmans LLP with a team that included David Matlow, Susan Garvie, Kari MacKay, Bram Atlin and Caroline Cook (corporate), Mitch Sherman, Cyndee Todgham-Cherniak, Jon Northup and Nik Diksic (tax), Joe Conforti and Joe Morrison (employment and labour), Daniel Gormley (competition) and Patricia Robinson (pensions) in Toronto; and in Ramat Gan, Jerusalem, by Meitar, Liquornik, Geva and Co. with a team led by Dan Geva, and including William Galkin, Ronen Bezalel, Tal Saatchi and Asaf Harel.

Bell Canada was represented in-house by Jane Luck, assistant general counsel, assisted by Richard Langevin, senior counsel; and by Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP with a team led by Richard Corley, and including Beth Gearing and Christine Ing (corporate and IT), David Kruse, Walied Soliman and Alice Lee (corporate), Min Ganaha and Greg Segal (IT), Jeremy Forgie (pensions and benefits), Leslie Morgan and Greg Kanargelidis (tax), Lee Shouldice (employment) and Dawn Jetten (financial services) in Toronto, and assisted by Sunny Handa, Marie-Hélène Constantin and Marie Sabourin in Montreal.