Team > Lawyers > Andreone, Rita
Rita advises public, public sector (Crown) and private corporations, large and small. Her varied practice requires her to keep current on many areas of law and various industries and focuses on:
- Negotiating and structuring private equity (Fund and Direct) Investments (Domestic/International),
- Advising tax-exempt entities,
- Pension plan investment,
- Debt/equity financings,
- Mergers and acquisitions,
- Corporate governance/risk management,
- Director/officer/trustee orientations, codes of conduct,
- Hospitality/hotel management franchise and lease arrangements,
- Significant real estate asset management and property management arrangements,
- Government relations, and
- Natural resources (options, joint ventures, and project development).
Rita is a founding member of Lawson Lundell’s Northwest Territories office. She has substantial experience as both a director and corporate secretary of corporations and societies.
Rita was featured in Lexpert magazine, April 2000 “Acting for Pension Funds; the Magic Circle”.
Recognition and Ranking
- Martindale-Hubbell International Law Directory: BV Peer Review rated
Professional Activities
- Law Society of BC, Third-term Bencher (to 2012)
- 2009-2011 Chair, Practice Standards Committee; 2010 Chair Audit Committee; 2010 Member Finance Committee; 2008-2011 Member, Acts and Rules Subcommittee, Law Society of BC
- Past Chair, 2008, Discipline Committee; Vice-Chair, 2007; Member 2003-2006; Conduct Review Panelist and Credential Hearings Panelist, Law Society of BC; Chambers Bencher
- 2006-2011 BC Member – Federal Judicial Advisory Committee – responsible for the recommendation for appointment of judges to the Federal and Superior Courts of BC
- 2006-2009 Independence and Self Governance Committee/Advisory Committee
- Regulatory Policy Committee, Vice-Chair, 2007
- 2007-2011 Women Lawyers Forum, Mentor
- Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, Past, Regional Chair (4 years)
- Canadian Bar Association, Member
Community Activities
- Italian Chamber of Commerce (BC & Alberta), Member, Past Director
- Associazione Giuliani-Dalmati di Vancouver
Bar Admissions
- Nunavut (1999)
- Northwest Territories (1994)
- British Columbia (1989)
Education
- University of Victoria (LL.B., 1988)
- University of British Columbia (B.A., 1985)
Languages
- Italian
Experience
Recent experience includes representing institutional investors, often as lead corporate counsel, in:
- The reorganization and integration of CHIP REIT (now, SilverBirch Hotels and Resorts) and Delta Hotels Group and follow-on investments
- The formation and organization of a hospitality platform and providing governance and general counsel advice
- Coordinating and structuring for Canadian, US and Mexican tax exemption recognition
- Three unsecured, rated, note offerings for an aggregate borrowing in excess of 1 billion dollars
- Direct and fund (increasingly, as lead private equity and/or financing investor) investments in:
- Two pan-European real estate funds, one through a UK and Luxembourg fund structure
- Brazilian timber interests through a Fundo de Investimento em Participações
- Brazilian retail interests and related co-investments through Brazilian, BVI and US structures
- Mexican industrial interests - 50 industrial properties and one office building in eleven cities throughout Mexico. This acquisition was reported to be the largest real estate transaction in Mexico at the time
- Mexican retail interests - 21 industrial properties in Ciudad Juarez
- A Mexican retail development joint venture
- Extensive private timberlands and related operations in British Columbia
- Exit of existing interests in a highly visible UK entity
- A French real estate interests (fund)
- Three separate industry-leading real estate advisory and services organizations supplying asset management, property management, leasing and development services to major institutional and private investors in Canada and the United States
- An 840-unit garden style apartment complex in St. Louis, Missouri, and assumption of a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development–insured financing
- Recognized land developers and builder groups in Alberta, Canada
- Lead purchaser’s counsel on the purchase of the Douglas Lake Ranch near Merritt, BC, the largest, privately-owned working ranch (complete with a village) in Canada. She had previously closed the sale of the Ranch in 1998 for other clients
- Lead vendors’ counsel on the disposition of the largest independent paper merchant in Canada to the Canadian subsidiary of a large, publicly traded Australian corporation
News / Publications
“Buying and Selling a Business” British Columbia PLTC (updated annually 1996 to 2007)
“Duties of Directors of the Investment Management Board and of the Pension Management Board Nominated by Boards of Trustees: Reconciling the Conflict” (May, 2002) Updated and presented December 2005, January 2006 and September 2006 to industry boards
“Real Estate Investing by Pension Funds: What Every Real Estate Lawyer Should Know” Western Forum Commercial Real Estate Law, Insight (June, 2003)
Conferences
She regularly presents on such topics as: corporate governance, legal ethics, director obligations and liability issues, Sarbanes-Oxley-type impacts on private issuers, pension plan investment in real estate.
Past lectures include: mine reclamation, mine reclamation security, environmental risks, issues for travel retailers, surface and subsurface land and mining regimes in British Columbia, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, and constitutional framework of the North.
