On December 15, 2020, Montréal-based FinTech firm Expertus announced that it had entered an agreement with IBM (NYSE: IBM) pursuant to which IBM acquired all of Expertus' operations.
Expertus is a leading FinTech company based in Montréal, providing cloud-based solutions designed for the financial services and payments industries. Over 1,000 banks, credit unions, regulatory authorities and major corporations worldwide process transactions averaging more than $50 billion per day on its payment platform. Expertus is also one of the largest North American services bureaus of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Transactions (SWIFT), a vast network used by banks and other financial institutions to manage money transfers and treasury transactions.
"We are a highly specialized FinTech company. We work with some of the largest financial institutions and multinational corporations on a daily basis in areas that are critical to them – namely payments and cash management. The Gowling WLG team was of tremendous help in this multifaceted transaction, both in its strategic approach and with respect to regulatory requirements in Canada and abroad. Their professionals possess an in-depth understanding of the industry and they largely contributed to the progress of this strategic transaction," said Jacques Leblanc, president and founder of Expertus.
With a multidisciplinary team led by Montréal-based partner Marc Tremblay, and which included lawyers from Canada and Europe, international law firm Gowling WLG is proud to have assisted Expertus with this significant global FinTech transaction.
"We are very proud to have assisted Expertus in this significant transaction. This represents an incredible achievement in the FinTech industry, and one that Expertus can proudly add to its outstanding track record. The trust that Expertus has placed in us reflects, yet again, the way the industry recognizes our firm's unique expertise in FinTech – an area where a single transaction requires the ability to integrate merger and acquisition concepts and a wide range of legal specialties, such as intellectual property, financial regulation, privacy and other cross-border issues," explained Tremblay.
To learn more about this transaction, please see this article by Bloomberg.
About Gowling WLG
With more than 1,500 legal professionals in 19 cities worldwide, we provide our clients with in-depth expertise in key global sectors and a suite of legal services at home and abroad. We see the world through our clients' eyes, and collaborate across countries, offices, service areas and sectors to help them succeed, no matter how challenging the circumstances.