General Counsel of the Year goes to Mirko Bibic

Mirko Bibic was named the country’s top in-house corporate lawyer at the 2017 Canadian General Counsel Awards on June 15.

Bibic, who is chief legal and regulatory officer and executive vicepresident, corporate development, at BCE Inc. and Bell Canada, was named 2017 Canadian General Counsel of the Year for his “visionary” work in piloting the company’s legal department through several multibillion dollar mergers and industryshaping regulatory hearings.

“I need a lot of help. Thankfully I’m very well surrounded. I’ve got an amazing group of colleagues at Bell,” Bibic said as he accepted the award at the black tie gala in Toronto. “Thank you very much for everything you do, every single day.”

The 13th annual CGCAs, founded and sponsored by The National Post and ZSA Legal Recruitment, salute the country’s best in-house lawyers. Eight awards were presented during the evening before a sold-out crowd of 550.

As previously announced, the Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to the family of Stephen Sigurdson of Manulife. What’s more, the honour has been renamed the BLG Stephen Sigurdson Lifetime Achievement award. Sigurdson passed away last November at age 56 after suffering a heart attack.

Leslie Sigurdson, his widow, and Laura Sigurdson, one of his daughters, accepted the award on his behalf. Leslie said her husband appreciated and embraced the challenges of being a corporate lawyer. He truly enjoyed his work, but he also enjoyed his family, she said.

“To me and our four daughters, three of whom are here tonight, he was just a lovable, loving, kind, clever, thoughtful, fun, and sometimes goofy person. He was also the best husband and father imaginable, and that was his other lifetime achievement,” Leslie Sigurdson said.

The CGCA for dealmaking, officially known as the Osler Purdy Crawford Deal Making award, went to Susan Jones, senior vice-president and chief legal officer of Agrium Inc.

Jones worked on Agrium’s $36-billion “merger of equals” with Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan.

“I’m super excited about the deal,” she told the gala. “A great merger is not when two perfect companies come together, but when two imperfect companies embrace their differences.”

Marni Dicker, who is chief commercial officer, executive vicepresident, general counsel and corporate secretary at Infrastructure Ontario, received the business achievement award.

“I can hardly believe I’m actually standing up here,” Dicker said. “Through our many different disciplines, we have the good fortune of shaping the legal profession in our country.”

Ingrid Minott, who is legal counsel at Deloitte LLP, received the Tomorrow’s Leader honour, a special award that recognizes the achievements and the potential of a lawyer with less than 10 years experience.

“To my colleagues at Deloitte, for whom I have the deepest respect, I can’t express enough how wonderful it is to work with each and every one of you,” Minott said.

The Mid-Market Excellence award went to Vivian Leung, general counsel of BlueCat Networks Inc., for her work on the sale of the company to Madison Dearborn Partners of Chicago.

She said her “small but mighty” legal team faced “a tidal wave” of advisors from the other side, and worked their way through a web of multiple classes of preference shares, options, warrants, exchangeable shares, and debt.

“There were so many pieces to it, it was like a law school exam,” Leung said.

Pascale Elharrar, associate general counsel and a managing partner BMO Wealth Management Group, received the litigation management award.

“I work for an organization who empowers its people to be fearless and take risks with the knowledge that we’re supported in that work,” Elharrar said.

The award for Environmental, Social and Governance went to Melissa Kennedy, who is executive vice-president, chief legal officer, public affairs and executive sponsor for sustainability at Sun Life.

“I think it’s really important, in this era of social unrest and uncertainty, that those of us who are committed to those tenants and principles of fairness and ethics and good governance speak up and remain true to those principles as we see them being challenged,” she said.