Partner, Lawyer, Co-Head of the Montreal Litigation Group
Frédéric Côté
Contact
Montreal
25th Floor1100 René-Lévesque Blvd. West
Montreal, Quebec H3B 5C9
CANADA 514 397-8500 514 397-8515 info@bcf.ca
Profile
Co-head of the Montreal Litigation Group and Partner practicing civil, administrative and commercial litigation, as well as alternative dispute resolution, Frédéric Côté is distinguished by his composure, his structured approach, his intellectual rigor and his reliability. Our clients naturally turn to him to solve their complex technical disputes.
Frédéric has led multi-million dollar expropriation, environmental and construction disputes involving the management of complex expertise. He is one of the leaders of our Administrative, Municipal and Environmental Law Group and represents numerous clients in the real estate field. Frédéric also has considerable experience in appeals before the Quebec Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.
Frédéric is known for his expertise in commercial arbitration. In this capacity, he is actively involved in the Quebec and Canadian legal community, including the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He also sat on the Board of Directors of Young Canadian Arbitration Practitioners (YCAP) from 2016 to 2020.
Expertise
Industries
Education
- Called to the Barreau du Québec (2007)
- LL.B., McGill University (2006)
- B.C.L., McGill University (2006)
Recognition(s)
- Best Lawyers in Canada (2025) - Administrative and Public Law, Construction Law and Expropriation Law
Publications
-
“Développements récents en matière d’expropriation déguisée : distinction entre les recours en nullité, en dommages pour responsabilité extracontractuelle d’un organisme public et en expropriation déguisée”
Développements récents en droit de l’environnement, Barreau du Québec, 2019
-
“Enforcement of Arbitral Awards in Canada”
2008 Lexpert Guide to the Leading US/Canada Cross-Border Litigation Lawyers in Canada (in collaboration with Éric Ouimet)
-
“L’arbitrage consensuel au Québec”
Contributor to the first and second editions of this book by Babak Barin and Marie-Claude Rigaud, Yvon Blais
Representative Work
- Counsel for real estate developers in disguised expropriation proceedings before the Superior Court of Quebec and in expropriation proceedings before the Tribunal administratif du Québec involving compensation exceeding $100 million following the expropriation of land by a municipality of the North Shore of Montreal;
- Represented real estate developers in disguised expropriation proceedings before the Québec Court of Appeal arising from municipal and regional regulations adopted by cities and MRCs in the Montréal South Shore agglomeration;
- Represented real estate developers in disguised expropriation and recognition of acquired rights proceedings before the Québec Court of Appeal;
- Represented a real estate developer in a claim against the Ministère des Transports du Québec before the Superior Court of Québec in connection with the construction of a highway which resulted in the flooding of the client's property;
- Represented a real estate developer in a challenge to regional and local by-laws that had the effect of depriving clients of any reasonable use of their land;
- Counsel for a real estate developer in a dispute that led to the award of an injunction to modify a major road infrastructure to restore the natural land flow as well as the protection afforded to illegally flooded land by the Environment Quality Act;
- Represented a real estate developer in an action for judicial review and damages relating to the blocking of a major real estate project involving the refusal of the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to recognize the conformity of the regional by-law to governmental orientations;
- Represented a paper mill in an action opposing the public order nature of the Act respecting labour standards and the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act;
- Counsel for the Arbitration Board of the Barreau du Québec’s Counsel Accounts in cases concerning the type of action to be taken against arbitration awards rendered by professional arbitration boards for professional accounts (Superior Court of Quebec and Quebec Court of Appeal);
- Counsel for the Barreau du Québec, the Federation of Law Societies of Canada and ADR Chambers in interventions before the Supreme Court of Canada;
- Counsel to a foreign company in proceedings for the recognition and enforcement of an arbitration award rendered in its favour by the ICC granting it more than 100 million dollars;
- Counsel to Société d'investissements l'Excellence inc. in a case involving the existence of an implied duty of confidentiality in consensual arbitration (Superior Court of Québec, Quebec Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada);
- Member of the team of lawyers representing Louis Dreyfus Company in large-scale ICC arbitrations concerning interests relating to a European refinery and in procedures for the annulment of the resulting arbitration awards (ICC Court of Arbitration, Superior Court of Quebec and Quebec Court of Appeal).
Conferences
-
2019
Speaker at the Symposium sur les développements récents en droit de l’environnement organized by the Barreau du Québec
Professional Affiliation(s)
- Barreau du Québec
- Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb)
Involvement
- Served on the Board of Directors of the Young Canadian Arbitration Practitioners (YCAP) from 2016 to 2020;
- As part of the Pro Bono Québec program, represented a tenant of a storage unit containing all of her belongings in a recourse against a storage company that had improperly liquidated the contents of the unit following a late payment.
