Rick Van Beselaere
Canada Guide 2025
Band 3 : Litigation: General Commercial
Band 3
About
Provided by Rick Van Beselaere
Practice Areas
Rick Van Beselaere is a senior lawyer with more than 30 years of experience in banking and finance, insolvency and bankruptcy, corporate restructuring, corporate/commercial, public-private partnership funding (P3), sports teams, and environmental law.
Rick is one of Saskatchewan’s most experienced counsel in the area of reorganization and restructuring under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (BIA) and the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA). Rick acts for lenders in major insolvency matters and has also acted on many of the largest commercial transactions in Saskatchewan.
Rick has extensive experience in environmental law, including contracts relating to environmental offset credit generation, aggregating and trading, and regulatory compliance. Rick has consulted with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment on the formulation of its climate change legislation and regulations.
Rick has acted as Saskatchewan counsel on several P3 projects, including DBFMO, DBFM, and DBF models, as well as design-build transactions. He has acted in respect of project financing and has experience with differing project delivery methods.
Rick is a regular presenter at credit workshops for financial institutions and credit departments and has authored certain sections on commercial mortgages and commercial credit transactions for the Law Society of Saskatchewan’s Bar Course Admission program.
Rick has long-standing experience in a number of areas of law:
Secured transactions: construction financing, acquisition financing, secured and unsecured financing, priority, and subordination agreements.
Credit enforcement and security realization: debt and security enforcement, receiverships and bankruptcies, forbearance agreements, and assessing priority disputes. Rick is one of Saskatchewan’s most experienced counsel in agricultural enforcement.
Climate change regulation, compliance, opportunities and commerce: advice to the Ministry on the structure and drafting of the climate change legislative framework, including guidance documents and policy considerations.
Corporate restructuring and reorganization: strategies and options to address credit challenges (for business owners and their customers and suppliers) and advice to creditors on how to initiate or to respond to enforcement/realization processes, manage and mitigate risks, and maximize recovery, recoverability, and effectiveness.
Rick is a Life Member of the Regina Queen City Kinsmen Club, being one of only a few to hold the highest honour that Club bestows on members. Rick has served on several committees to manage some of the largest events that the Kinsmen and Kinettes sponsor or deliver (such as Kinsmen Telemiracle, Kinsmen Car Awards, and Kinsmen Big Valley Jamboree and Kinsmen Rock’n the Valley).
Rick is one of three founding directors of the Regina Inner City Family Foundation.