In the midst of a booming Canadian and international project finance market, McCarthy Tétrault has lured an experienced corporate lawyer with a focus on the construction industry to its Toronto office.
Scott Chalmers, a former King & Spalding partner, works in many sectors including oil and gas, coal, nuclear power, mining and metals, shipbuilding, and transportation infrastructure. He advises sponsors and lenders on contracts and disputes. Besides practicing law, Chalmers has acted as a consultant and contract administrator in the construction industry, and he has worked as an architect in Canada and Australia.
In a discussion with IFLR1000, Chalmers reflected on the resilience of the US downstream and midstream petrochemicals market in the face of the oil price drop.
“The prospect of cheap feedstock for developing petrochemical projects still seems quite reasonable. With predictions of an overheated market from a couple years ago appearing to fall away, if clients are well placed, they can make a good run of things right now,” Chalmers said.
Of course, this resilience does not mean the opportunities are evenly distributed everywhere. Opportunities in a range of sectors look particularly strong in Ontario at the moment.
“Here in Toronto, I will have a broader practice than in Houston. Infrastructure in Toronto looks to be booming. The number of tower cranes on the skyline is remarkable, finance is cheap, and all of this makes it attractive to be here. It doesn’t seem that the Canadian market is as affected by the oil price downturn as the Houston market seems to have been. Houston of course is highly dependent on the price of oil,” Chalmers added.
Chalmers earned his law degree at Macquarie University and holds architectural degrees from the University of Newcastle and the University of Manitoba.