John is a goal-oriented corporate lawyer who thrives on moving projects forward. He excels at helping foreign companies deal with Canadian regulations and Canadian companies deal with international hurdles. Often applying his background in mathematics to the strategic analysis of business and legal matters, John demonstrates a dedicated focus to finding solutions that advance his clients’ objectives.
John is a member of the firm’s Corporate, Technology and Communications & Media Groups. His practice covers a wide range of corporate, commercial and securities law matters, with a particular focus on mergers and acquisitions, corporate structures and reorganizations, and corporate finance. John has led numerous project teams in completing complex and multifaceted business transactions.
John has represented purchasers and vendors in the negotiation and structuring of business acquisitions. He has also acted for issuers, investors and investment bankers in private and public issuances and placements of equity and debt securities. He works with capital market participants and wealth management specialists, and assists with the planning and management of significant family trusts and investment funds.
Additionally, John advises emerging businesses in all aspects of their corporate structure, governance, financing, technology licensing and commercialization from the startup phase through to eventual listing on public markets. He has frequently worked with inventors and financiers to bring life sciences technologies from the university setting to the public capital markets. John also assists public company clients with their ongoing governance, compliance and continuous disclosure requirements.
In recent years, John has been heavily involved in the establishment of a new entrant in the Canadian telecommunications market and in assisting its foreign investor with the rapidly evolving and uncertain Canadian policy and regulatory regime governing that sector.
Professional Involvement
Professional Activities
- Corporate counsel to and serves as director and corporate secretary of several public and private companies
Community Involvement
- Initiated a companion dog visiting program for elderly patients at the Baycrest Centre's chronic care unit
- Longtime participant in the Terry Fox Run, raising donations for cancer research every year since the event began in 1981
Author, "TSX-V offers public venture capital for emerging businesses," The Lawyers Weekly, July 9, 2004.
Canadian Pacific Limited – 4% Consolidated Debenture Stock (A&B Blawg Brief).