Curtis A. Cusinato

First Year of Call
Ontario, 1993

Areas of Practice
Commercial Law

Description
Curtis Cusinato is one of Canada’s top deal makers. He is a business-focused, trusted advisor in cross-border M&A, private equity and capital markets transactions. He finds workable solutions to complex matters and is relentless in serving his clients’ strategic goals. He understands their industries thoroughly and is highly esteemed for getting deals done in Canada, the U.S. and globally.
For more than 25 years, Curtis has been advising leading public and private companies and private equity groups. He leads multi-billion dollar M&A deals, going private transactions and corporate financings. He is a superb negotiator and represents clients on divestitures, leveraged and management buyouts, take-over bids, IPOs, restructurings and other strategic investments.
His clients include multinational companies and some of the largest family offices in Canada. He has acted on multiple deals in multiple industries, giving him an unparalleled depth of diverse industry expertise.
Curtis is consistently recognized as one of Canada’s top deal makers in Canadian, U.S. and international legal publications. He is highly ranked in M&A, private equity, mid-market, corporate commercial and corporate finance in Chambers Global, Chambers Canada, the Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory, the Lexpert/American Lawyer Media Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada and other directories. He has been named as a leading lawyer in a broad array of industries, including finance, technology, energy, mining, health and agribusiness.
Prior to joining Bennett Jones, Curtis served as the managing partner of the Toronto office at another Canadian national law firm—where he also served as a member of the executive committee and partnership board, as the former national head of the corporate group and as co-chair of the M&A and private equity group.
Curtis is actively involved in a number of community and charitable initiatives. He served on the board of the North York General Hospital Foundation and as Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee and Governor’s Council. Curtis supported the Wellspring Cancer Support Foundation, joining a team of cyclists as they undertook the Wellspring Peloton Challenge—riding from Toronto to Las Vegas in 2018 and again in 2019, from Toronto to San Antonio, and most recently from Toronto to Collingwood, Ontario in 2021.
Curtis began building his international and industry experience early in his career with a one-year secondment to Sydney, Australia in 1997. Then in 1999, he acted as interim general counsel for Waste Management in Canada. In 1990, Curtis completed an internship at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, England and in 1991 he completed the Michigan Bar exam.