Project Development and Finance Project Development and Finance

Canada’s most consequential projects — including pipelines, infrastructure, mining and natural resources, power and utilities, data centres, and defence, security and aerospace — involve billions in capital, multi-decade operating commitments.

They also carry risk that spans regulatory frameworks, consultation, financing markets, project structuring, and contract procurement and execution. When these projects come to market, sponsors, lenders, investors, and governments turn to Osler first.

Market-leading validation

Osler is the only Canadian law firm ranked Band 1 in Chambers Canada across all five of the core categories that define this work:

• Projects: PPP & Infrastructure
• Construction: Front-end and disputes
• Energy: Oil & Gas
• Energy: Power
• Information Technology: The digital economy

Comprehensive depth across the project development and financing lifecycle

Major projects require a vast spectrum of legal specialization that cannot operate in silos. Decisions made during early-stage regulatory consultations and project structuring impact project risk, financing bankability, exposure to claims and disputes, and ultimately how the asset operates decades later.

Osler’s Project Development and Finance team brings together the full breadth of expertise required to advance a project through its entire lifecycle. Our team has deep experience advising clients in all virtually industry sectors on project finance matters. This involvement in an ongoing flow of projects, and exposure to the challenges unique to project finance (in particular, determining the optimal financing structure), allows us to satisfy borrowers’ financing needs while adequately protecting lenders.

Major projects demand proactive management of cost and schedule risks, from scope changes and schedule disruptions to tariffs and supply chain breakdowns. Osler brings deep experience in project claims, delay analysis, and dispute resolution, allowing us to intervene early and structure resolution strategies that keep projects on track with regulators, stakeholders, and the contracting supply chain.

Deep sector insight derived from decades of execution

Each asset class — whether an LNG facility, hospital, data centre, nuclear refurbishment, waste management facility or other capital project — demands different commercial instincts, regulatory foresight, and supply chain sensitivities, including context-specific data governance and cybersecurity. Sector knowledge that determines which commercial terms will hold under stress is built through years of work on assets of that specific type, not over the course of a single transaction. Osler has built that deep knowledge across every asset class that matters in Canadian project work, bringing it to bear from the first commercial conversation through to long-term operation.

Indigenous law expertise integrated from day one

Indigenous law obligations shape whether and how Canadian projects proceed. The duty to consult, benefits and participation agreements, and the regulatory frameworks governing Indigenous-related approvals are determinative of project viability. They must be built into the project structure from the outset as a continuing legal obligation and partnership, not as an afterthought.

Osler’s Indigenous law team is among the most experienced in Canada, having drafted hundreds of agreements between corporate clients and Indigenous groups in virtually every province and territory. We advise sponsors, lenders, and investors on duty to consult, complex agreement negotiations, regulatory approvals, and related litigation. That capability is integrated into our project teams from day one. Approvals strategy, agreement structures, and project economics develop in alignment with our clients’ broader commercial objectives. Few Canadian project practices can match this depth of immediately accessible Indigenous law experience.

Why Osler

Major projects that shape a client’s business and commitments for the next decade demand the firm best equipped to deliver them. Osler offers a singular combination no other Canadian practice can match:

• The market’s only Chambers Canada Band 1 sweep across all five core areas of project work.
• Comprehensive legal breadth that supports the project from structuring, stakeholder consultation, procurement and contracting, financing, and claims management through to commercial operations.
• Unmatched Major Projects Office insight gained through our ongoing advisory work for the Privy Council Office and the Major Projects Office, including on how projects move through the federal listing process.
• Integrated Indigenous law expertise working alongside the commercial team from day one to de-risk the path to close.

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Areas of Focus