Catherine Hofmann

Practice Areas

Catherine Hofmann is a former managing partner at Bernard LLP and leads a team of maritime law solicitors at the firm. Her practice focuses on the commercial nature of the marine industry and she has extensive experience in negotiating and drafting transactional and other agreements including vessel sales, construction and financing, the use and supply of terminal and other marine services, charters, contracts of carriage, as well as the lease and license of crown land (covered by water).

Her clients span the spectrum of small local start-ups to large national and international companies operating in the transportation and maritime sectors such as cargo terminal operators, yacht and commercial vessel owners, banks and commercial lenders, ferries and other passenger carriers, naval architects, marine construction and ship recycling companies, as well as governments and other public-sector entities.

In addition, Catherine has a deep understanding of corporate transactional work and has frequently advised clients in mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, debt and equity financing, as well as the organization of new and existing business ventures, including shareholder agreements, partnerships, joint ventures and corporate reorganizations.

Recently, she has developed a particular interest in ship recycling as a critical issue facing Canadian ship owners and has spoken numerous times about this topic at industry conferences. Catherine has a passion for proactive legal and business advice and works not just to manage problems but solve them!

Professional Memberships

British Columbia Bar, 1993

Law Society of Upper Canada, 1993

Law Society of B.C.

Women’s International Shipping & Trading Association

Association of British Columbia Marine Industries

Canadian Bar Association

Business, Maritime, and Environmental Law Sections

Publications

Catherine is an annual contributor to the British Columbia Continuing Legal Education’s Due Diligence Deskbook on chapters relating to vessel searches, water lots and provincial crown tenures and is responsible each year for revising the chapter on Vessel Financing in the British Columbia Personal Property Security Act Practice Manual. She is also frequent contributor to Western Mariner magazine on legal issues facing the marine industry, including recent topics on ship recycling, the application of the federal luxury tax to vessel transactions and limiting liability under standard form contracts.

LL.M. thesis: “Keeping Up With the Feds: The Provincial Response to Canada’s Species at Risk Act”, Master’s Thesis, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Graduate Studies in Law, June 2008.

Education