About

David Shapiro is senior vice president and chief legal officer of Air Canada. An expert in aircraft financing and leasing transactions, Shapiro joined predecessor company Canadian Airlines International in 1997 and helped lead it through restructuring of its debt and lease obligations prior to the its amalgamation with Air Canada in 2001. Shapiro then played a key role in Air Canada’s restructuring in 2004, the same year in which he was appointed general counsel and member of the executive team. Shapiro’s longstanding interest in aircraft financing structures helped to revolutionise commercial aviation transactions in Canada. Since the early 1990s he has been exploring enhanced equipment trust certificates (EETC), US capital markets products involving the acquisition of equipment through a trust or special purpose vehicle, allowing airlines to unlock asset-based sources of financing secured against their fleets. This source of financing had previously been unavailable in Canada due to the legal obstacles creditors faced in securing assets. Recognising this problem, Shaprio served as a delegate to the Unidroit-ICAO Joint Sessions for the Cape Town Convention, which had been established in 1988 to overcome the problem lex situs rules pertaining to the location of debtors presented to equipment financing. The result of this long process was an international treaty committing signatory nations to agree the transfer to creditors of aircraft belonging to financially distressed airlines in their jurisdiction if repayments or debt restructuring are not arranged. Canada signed the Cape Town Convention in 2004 and ratified it in 2013, introducing the enabling legislation for a new form of debt financing for Canada-based airlines. Almost immediately, Shapiro helped Air Canada to capitalise on this new provision by raising over US$700m through an EETC offering, helping the airline to acquire five new passenger aircraft. The airline has since gone on to issue further debt, helping it remain one of the leading companies in a fiercely competitive market.