Faculty - OsgoodePD

Top notch instruction from industry thought leaders.

Tap into the minds of leading academics, judges, senior practitioners and industry experts—each a leader in their respective specialization. Learn more about the diverse range of scholars for this program.

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Business Law Faculty

Program Director,

Poonam Puri

Professor Poonam Puri is one of Canada’s most respected scholars and commentators on issues of corporate governance, corporate law, securities law, and financial regulation. She is Professor of Law and Associate Dean, Research, Graduate Studies, and Institutional Relations at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. She is also Co-Director of the Hennick Centre for Business and Law, a joint initiative of Osgoode Hall Law School and the Schulich School of Business at York University, and was formerly the Head of Research and Policy at the Capital Markets Institute, Rotman School of Business, University of Toronto. Appointed to York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School in 1997, and a recipient of its Teaching Excellence Award in 1999 and 2009, Puri is a prolific scholar who has co-authored/edited three books and written numerous articles, book chapters and reports. She has an LL.B. degree from the University of Toronto and she holds a Master of Laws (LLM) degree from Harvard Law School. Puri’s work is academically rigorous as well as firmly grounded in the real-time of policy-making. It is for this reason that governments and regulators in Canada and internationally, including Industry Canada, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), the Canadian Senate, the Wise Persons Committee on Securities Regulation and the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank, have sought her expertise. She has advised public and private company boards of directors, and has acted as an independent expert on significant securities litigation cases and class action matters. In 2008, Puri was appointed as one of two research directors of the Canadian Ministry of Finance’s Expert Panel on Securities Regulation, which has led to the proposed national securities regulator. In 2005, she was co-research director of the Task Force to Modernize Securities Legislation and also served as a member of the Ontario Securities Commission’s Investor Advisory Committee from 2005 to 2007. She was President of the Canadian Law and Economics Association from 2006-2008. Professor Puri is a 2005 recipient of Canada’s Top 40 under 40™ award, and the 2008 recipient of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce Female Professional of the Year Award, and the 2010 recipient of the Professional Excellence Award from the Canadian Association of South Asian Lawyers and the 2010 Lawyer of the Year from the South Asian Bar Association. In 2011, Puri was named one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada by the Women Executive Network. Puri is a member of the board of directors of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority and is currently chair of its Corporate Governance and Nominating Committee. Puri also sits on the Board of Governors of Mount Sinai Hospital and is a member of the National Advisory Council for Statistics Canada.

Andrew CarlsonOpen Accordion

Andrew Sunter

Barnali ChoudhuryOpen Accordion

Barnali Choudhury is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Jack & Mae Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security. Prior to joining Osgoode, she was a Professor at University College London and academic director of UCL’s Global Governance Institute.

She is an internationally recognized expert on business and international economic issues, particularly as they relate to issues of human rights. She has published numerous books, including Corporate Duties to the Public (Cambridge University Press, 2019); Understanding the Company: Corporate Governance and Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2017); and Public Services and International Trade Liberalization: Human Rights and Gender Implications (Cambridge University Press, 2012), as well as a forthcoming commentary on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Her work has appeared in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, Berkeley Business Law Journal, International & Comparative Law Quarterly, Journal of Corporate Law Studies, as well as in numerous other journals and in book chapters. It has also been featured in the Oxford Business Law Blog, the Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog and the American Society of International Law Insight, among others. She has written op-eds for the Globe and Mail, the Neue Zurcher Zeitung, and iPolitics and her work has been featured in Bloomberg Businessweek. She has held numerous research grants including a grant from the Leverhulme Trust, one of the UK’s most prestigious research bodies.

She is regularly invited to give talks and has presented her work throughout Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America and at the United Nations. She has visited at New York University, University of Cambridge, University of St. Gallen, University of Otago, and at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and Private Law. In addition to numerous academic citations, her work has been cited by the United Nations, the UK’s House of Commons, the House of Lords EU Select Committee, international arbitral tribunals and relied on by governments and international non-governmental organizations.

Christopher C. NichollsOpen Accordion

Christopher C. Nicholls holds the W. Geoff Beattie Chair in Corporate Law at the University of Western Ontario, where he was named a Faculty Scholar in 2013 and served as Acting Dean in 2023. He received a Fulbright Scholar award in 2016. He is a graduate of the University of Ottawa, Osgoode Hall Law School, and Harvard University.

He has been a Visiting Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School, a Senior Visiting Research Scholar at the Yale Law School, a Herbert Smith Visitor at the University of Cambridge, a Visiting Scholar at the University of Melbourne, a Visiting Research Scholar at the University of Tokyo, and the Falconbridge Visiting Professor of Commercial Law at Osgoode Hall Law School. He has also been a visiting professor at the law faculties of the University of Toronto and Queen’s University.

He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Canadian Business Law Journal, and a director of the Centre for Financial Innovation and Risk Management, at Western University. From 2016-2022, he served as the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada, the national self-regulatory organization for the distribution side of the Canadian mutual fund industry, and one of the two predecessor organizations of the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO). He has also previously served as the Head of Policy and Research, Capital Markets Institute, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, as a Research Fellow with the Filene Research Institute, Madison, Wisconsin, and as a member (Commissioner) of the Nova Scotia Securities Commission.

Before coming to Western Law in 2006, Professor Nicholls was for a number of years a member of the Dalhousie University Faculty of Law (now the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University) where he was the inaugural holder of the Purdy Crawford Chair in Business Law and acted as Director of Dalhousie’s LL.B. Business Law Specialization Program. Before joining Dalhousie, he practiced corporate and securities law, first with two of Toronto’s largest corporate law firms, then as a corporate finance and securities attorney in Hamilton, Bermuda.

Professor Nicholls has acted as a consultant to private law firms, government departments and regulators and has addressed academic and professional audiences in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, and South America. He has been a frequent speaker on topics relating to corporate law and mergers and acquisitions in judicial education programs organized for Canadian superior court judges by the National Judicial Institute.

In 2015, he was a member of the Business Law Agenda Expert Panel appointed by Ontario’s Minitry of Government and Consumer Services to provide recommendations for reform of Ontario’s corporate and commercial legislation. He is the author of numerous articles in the business law field as well as seven books: Corporate Law (Emond Montgomery, 2005); Financial Institutions: The Regulatory Framework (LexisNexis, 2008); Mergers, Acquisitions and Other Changes of Corporate Control 3d ed. (Irwin, 2020) (First edition published in 2007); Corporate Finance and Canadian Law 2d ed. (Carswell, 2013) (First edition published in 2001); Securities Law, 3d ed. (Irwin, 2023); Back from the Brink: Lessons from the Canadian Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Crisis (University of Toronto Press, 2016) (with Paul Halpern, Caroline Cakebread and Poonam Puri); and Duties of Securities Brokers in Canada (LexisNexis, 2021) (with Jeffrey G. MacIntosh). His work has been cited by Canadian securities commissions and by many Canadian courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada.

David ManganOpen Accordion

Delong LiOpen Accordion

Germán Morales FarahOpen Accordion

Germán Morales Farah is an experienced international legal counsel and business advisor with extensive experience in negotiating complex international agreements in various industries and languages worldwide. He advises major corporations and institutions on their legal matters and business transactions and assists companies to successfully navigate the business, legal, cultural, and political landscape in North America, Latin America and the rest of the world.Mr. Morales Farah’s practice is focused on international business transactions. He counsels clients on mergers, acquisitions, partnerships, joint ventures, financings, international trade, corporate matters and governance, international hotel and residential developments, foreign investment and trade, government relations, export-import transactions, and corporate conflicts, and represents companies in matters involving both common law and civil law systems.Throughout his career, Mr. Morales Farah has had the opportunity to combine his vast academic experience with his broad range of professional legal and business expertise in international trade, corporate matters, and cross-border transactions.Mr. Morales Farah’s expertise in structuring, negotiating, and implementing international business transactions includes international projects located in Latin America, Europe, Africa, Russia, Asia, Canada, and the United States of America.Mr. Morales Farah has acted as in-house counsel for prestigious companies and has worked at leading international law firms. Prior to joining Osgoode, Mr. Morales Farah held the position of Vice President, Corporate Counsel of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts and worked at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York City and the law firms of Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP and McCarthy Tétrault LLP in Toronto.Amongst the many honours and distinctions he has received, Mr. Morales Farah was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship, the New York University Graduate Merit Scholarship, and the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba Award.Mr. Morales Farah has a Master of Laws (LLM) degree from New York University School of Law and he graduated with the highest honours as a lawyer (JD equivalent) from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina. He also obtained a certificate on Foundations of American Law and Legal Education from the Georgetown University Law Center, in Washington, D.C.Mr. Morales Farah is Program Director for the Professional LL.M. in International Business Law at Osgoode Professional Development, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University.He is fluent in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, and Russian.

Gordon E. KaiserOpen Accordion

Gordon Kaiser is a counsel, arbitrator and mediator practicing in Toronto and Calgary at Regulation Law Chambers. His practice involves domestic and international disputes in energy, competition law and technology. He served as Vice Chairman of the Ontario Energy Board for 6 years. Prior to that he was a partner in the Gowlings law firm for 25 years where he appeared in the courts of five provinces, the Federal Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court of Canada and regulatory commissions across the country.

Mr. Kaiser has advised both regulators and utilities. The regulators include the Ontario Energy Board, the Alberta Utilities Commission,

the Commissioner of Competition, the Ontario Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission, the Commissioner of Patents and the Competition Tribunal. The utilities include Toronto Hydro, Union Gas, Hydro One, PowerStream (Alectra), London Hydro, Ontario Power Generation, AltaLink, EPCOR and China Three Gorges.

Gordon has mediated settlements in the energy and technology sector, including disputes on multi- year rate plans between public utilities and their major customers and long term contracts for the pricing of gas, electricity and wireless data. He has advised both the Alberta’s Utility Commission and the Ontario IESO on settlements under the Market Rules and both the Attorney General Canada and the Commissioner of Competition on settlements under the Competition Act.

Mr. Kaiser has arbitrated disputes dealing with the construction of transmission and pipeline facilities, power purchase agreements, gas supply contracts, the construction of power plants wind and solar facilities. He is a member of the JAMS Global Engineering and Construction panel in Washington DC, the IESO panel in Toronto, the ICC Canadian arbitration panel in Ottawa and the London Court of International Arbitration.

Gordon has served as an Adjunct Professor at Queen’s University, the University of Toronto and the Osgoode Hall Law School. He is Editor along with Bill Rowley and Doak Bishop of The Guide to Energy Arbitration now in its fifth edition. For 10 years he has served as Co-Chair of the Canadian Energy Law Forum and a Managing Editor of the Energy Regulation Quarterly. He is recognized as one of Canada’s leading Arbitrators by Chambers Global.

Gordon is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in London and a member of the Swiss Arbitration Association and the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators. Mr. Kaiser has served on a number of corporate boards including subsidiaries of Bell Canada and AltaLink, Alberta’s largest electricity transmitter.

Jennifer StamOpen Accordion

Luis SarabiaOpen Accordion

Martin Kratz, K.C.Open Accordion

Mohamed KhimjiOpen Accordion

Robert AntenoreOpen Accordion

Robert HarlangOpen Accordion

Robert RichardsonOpen Accordion

Virginie GauthierOpen Accordion