While it is still in its early days, the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) presents new and significant opportunities for cross-border M&A activity between Canada and the EU. In a recent feature article for the Lexpert publication Canada's Leading Corporate Lawyers, Stikeman Elliott partners Eric Bremermann and Mario Nigro argue that CETA may soon make Canada a hotspot for cross-border trade and investment, attracting the attention of global companies from across both the EU and the US that are looking to expand cost-effectively into new markets. The article describes how, with CETA in place, Canadian companies will not only able to take advantage of heightened interest from the US and Europe, but will also be better positioned to seek out M&A deals of their own in the EU and US. The first beneficiaries of this trend are likely to be sectors that were previously subject to high tariff barriers – such as agriculture, food and beverage, chemicals, plastics and automotive – but many other industries will also benefit from the increase in cross-border M&A activity into and out of Canada as many of the tariff and non-tariff barriers are eliminated.
The full article as published by Lexpert is available here. A review of CETA is available here."
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