Pierre Bienvenu

Area of Practices:
Construction Foreign Investment Mergers and Acquisitions Pharmaceutical Products Telecommunications International International Distribution & Joint Ventures Transportation

Pierre Bienvenu, Ad. E. served as arbitrator and has acted as counsel in many international and domestic arbitrations, both ad hoc and institutional, involving disputes in energy, transportation, telecommunications, mergers and acquisitions, construction, pharmaceutical products, international distribution and joint ventures, and foreign investment. He practiced for more than 35 years at Norton Rose Fulbright Canada and served as Global Co-head of Norton Rose Fulbright’s international arbitration practice from 2011 to 2021.

Pierre Bienvenu, Ad. E. served as arbitrator and has acted as counsel in many international and domestic arbitrations, both ad hoc and institutional, involving disputes in energy, transportation, telecommunications, mergers and acquisitions, construction, pharmaceutical products, international distribution and joint ventures, and foreign investment. He practiced for more than 35 years at Norton Rose Fulbright Canada and served as Global Co-head of Norton Rose Fulbright’s international arbitration practice from 2011 to 2021.

A former co-chair of the IBA Arbitration Committee (2008-2009), Pierre served on the LCIA Court, of which he was also a vice-president, between 2010 and 2015, and on the ICC Court of Arbitration between 2015 and 2021 He is currently a member of the Court of Arbitration of SIAC. In 2021, Pierre was designated by the Government of Canada as a member of ICSID's Panel of Arbitrators for a six-year term.

As co-chair of the IBA Arbitration Committee, Pierre oversaw the 2010 revisions to the IBA Rules on the Taking of Evidence in International Arbitration and later worked on the 2014 revisions to the IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration.

In parallel to his international arbitration practice, Pierre maintained a busy practice as counsel before Canadian courts. He appeared in more than 15 appeals before the Supreme Court of Canada in cases involving a broad range of commercial and constitutional law issues, including landmark cases such as the Secession Reference, regarding the conditions of Quebec’s possible secession from Canada, acting as co-counsel for BCE and Bell Canada in their successful appeal to the Supreme Court to approve a plan of arrangement for the $50 billion leveraged buyout of BCE by a private equity consortium, and the more recent Churchill Falls case, dealing with contractual good faith and changed circumstances.  Pierre intervened on behalf of the LCIA, the ICC Court, and a Canadian arbitration centre in four appeals to the Supreme Court of Canada raising international arbitration issues, most recently in the Uber case, which concerned the application of the compétence/compétence principle to the ICC arbitration clause contained in the licensing agreement entered into by Uber drivers.

Pierre served as National Managing Partner of Ogilvy Renault (one of Norton Rose Fulbright Canada’s predecessor firms) between 2005 and 2009 and chaired its executive committee from 2005 to 2011, and served on Norton Rose Fulbright’s Global Supervisory Board from 2011 to 2014.

Pierre is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He was awarded the distinction Advocatus Emeritus by the Quebec Bar in 2008 and, in 2013, he was presented with the Paul-André Crépeau Medal by the Canadian Bar Association for his contribution to the advancement of the international dimension of private law and commercial law in Canada. He has been ranked among the top 25 most highly regarded individuals in the practice of international arbitration worldwide in Who's Who Legal's International Who's Who of Commercial Arbitration.

In addition to becoming an Arbitrator with Arbitration Place, upon his retirement from Norton Rose Fulbright Canada at the end of June 2022, Pierre will pursue his practice as an international arbitrator with the Montreal-based litigation boutique IMK.

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