Gideon Forrest has a litigation and dispute resolution practice with emphasis on corporate and commercial matters. He regularly appears before all levels of court in Ontario.
Gideon's practice includes a broad range of commercial litigation and arbitration matters. Gideon has particular expertise in corporate and shareholder disputes and oppression remedy applications, having acted for both majority and minority shareholders in oppression and winding up proceedings. Gideon also has experience with contractual disputes, dealership, distributorship and franchise disputes, domestic and international arbitration, family business disputes, estates litigation and contested wills, fiduciary duties/breach of trust, employment/wrongful termination, restrictive and non-competition covenants and corporate/commercial injunctions.
Gideon has been involved for the last several years in the complex family business dispute of Waxman v. Waxman. Waxman v. Waxman is one of the most extensive, factually complex and widely-reported cases in Ontario, involving issues of oppression and breach of fiduciary duties. After our client was restored as a 50 percent owner of the family business (after having been hoodwinked by his brother), Gideon has been involved in numerous further proceedings to uphold and enforce the judgment, including obtaining orders governing the running of the family business and freezing all of the assets of the defendants, so that they could not be dissipated pending enforcement proceedings, and in a court-ordered reference which established the damages suffered by our client at almost $40 million. In related bankruptcy proceedings, Gideon was involved in an important case concerning the doctrine of equitable subordination.
Gideon also is involved in continuing legal education, both externally and within the firm, where he co-chairs a program on motions court practice and delivers a lecture to the associates on evidence issues in practice.
Gideon summered with the firm in 1992, articled with the firm in 1993-94, joined the litigation department as an associate in 1995 and became a partner in 2003.