Michael practices civil litigation with a focus on corporate/commercial and securities matters, including contractual and shareholder disputes, investigations and proceedings before securities and other regulators, professional liability, employment litigation, oppression, fraud litigation, investment loss claims, insurance disputes, and class actions.  Michael also has experience with cases in the areas of bankruptcy and insolvency, defamation, estates, internet and cyber liability, pensions, real estate, condominiums, construction and intellectual property.

Michael has appeared as counsel before all levels of court in Ontario and administrative tribunals including the Ontario Securities Commission, the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, the Mutual Fund Dealers Association, the Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario, and the British Columbia Securities Commission. Michael also has experience in commercial arbitration, in proceedings before the courts of other provinces, and in investigations conducted by various regulators.

Michael regularly volunteers as pro bono duty counsel to unrepresented litigants at the Superior Court of Justice and Small Claims Court and as a coach to the Osgoode Hall team at the annual Corporate/Securities Law Moot.

Michael joined the firm after articling and then practicing in the litigation department of a major national law firm.

Speaking Engagements & Publications

Speaker, “Overview of Securities Litigation”, Institute for Law Clerks of Ontario Seminar, October 24, 2018

Speaker, “Liability of Directors and Officers”, Eighth Annual Securities Symposium, Advocates’ Society,  September 5, 2018

Speaker, “Do’s and Don’ts’ of Handling Client Complaints and Conducting Investigations”, Client Seminar, July 2018

Author, Individual Acts and Corporate Benefits: Towards a More Expansive Standard for Company Liability, April 2018

Co-Author, “Don’t be the next Equifax: Cyber-liability in an Age of Data Insecurity: Recognizing and Managing Cyber-risk”, Private Capital Markets Association Newsletter, October 2017

Co-Author, “Separate, Independent and Confounding: Understanding Personal Liability for Corporate Acts”, Annual Review of Civil Litigation (Toronto: Thomson Reuters Canada Limited, 2017, reproduced with permission).

Co-Presenter, “Outside Business Activities and Personal Financial Dealings: Civil and Regulatory Risk and When to Seek Legal Advice” Association of Canadian Compliance Professionals, November 2016

Co-Author, “Ontario Securities Commission Reviews: An Exercise in Futility or a Road out of the Quagmire?” Private Capital Markets Association of Canada Market Insights Issue, Fall 2014

Co-author, “The Remedies for Defamation on Wikipedia”, The Lawyers Weekly, September 27, 2013

Co-author, “The Growing Reach of the Ministry of the Environment”, (paper presented to the Ontario Bar Association Section on Environmental Law, Toronto, Ontario, February 7, 2013)

Co-author, “Canada” in International Insolvency: a Jurisdictional Comparison, 3rd Edition, ed. J. William Boone, European Lawyer Reference Series (London: European Lawyer, 2012)

Co-author, “Damages: Considerations in addressing Physical Damage to Land”, (paper presented to the Ontario Bar Association Section on Environmental Law, Toronto, Ontario, November 28, 2012)