Expertise: Corporate Law/Commercial Law/Securities

Williams, Cynthia

Professor Cynthia Williams joined Osgoode Hall Law School on July 1, 2013 as the Osler Chair in Business Law, a position she also held from 2007 to 2009. Before coming to Osgoode, she was a member of the faculty at the University of Illinois College of Law and, prior to that, she practised law at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City.

Professor Williams writes in the areas of securities law, corporate law, corporate responsibility, comparative corporate governance and regulatory theory, often in interdisciplinary collaborations with professors in anthropology, economic sociology, and organizational psychology.

Her book The Embedded Firm: Corporate Governance, Labor, And Finance Capitalism, co-edited with Osgoode Professor Peer Zumbansen, was published in 2011 by Cambridge University Press and was featured at the Society for Socio-Economics (SASE) Annual Conference in 2012 at MIT.

Professor Williams’ work has been published in the Georgetown Law Journal, the Harvard Law Review, the Journal of Corporation Law, Theoretical Inquiries in Law, the University of New South Wales Law Journal, the Virginia Law Review, the Academy of Management Review, the Corporate Governance International Review, and the Journal of Organizational Behavior, among others.

Professor Williams has lectured and taught in China, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Scotland, South Korea, Spain, the UK and throughout Canada and the United States.

Professor Williams also engages in policy work through her board membership in the Network for Sustainable Financial Markets, a think-tank of academics and financial market participants; the Climate Bonds Initiative, an NGO established to create a new asset class, Climate Bonds, in order to finance the transition to a low-carbon economy; and as a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Finance Advisory Board.

Waitzer, Edward J.

Edward J. Waitzer was the inaugural Jarislowsky Dimma Mooney Chair in Corporate Governance, a joint appointment between Osgoode Hall Law School and the Schulich School of Business at York University from 2007 to 2020.  Previously, he was the Falconbridge Professor of Commercial Law (2005–2006) and served as an Adjunct Professor at Osgoode.  He teaches a range of courses including Business Associations, Corporate Governance, Investor Protection, Mergers & Acquisitions and an “Art of the Deal” seminar.

He was Chair of Stikeman Elliott LLP from 1999 to 2006 and is a senior partner whose practice focuses on complex business transactions, public policy and governance matters.  He has previously served as Chair of the Ontario Securities Commission (and of the Technical Committee of the International Organization of Securities Commissions) and as Vice-President of the Toronto Stock Exchange.  He has written and spoken extensively on a variety of legal and public policy issues and has served as director of a number of corporations, foundations, community organizations, editorial boards and advisory groups.

He currently serves as Vice-Chair of a major Chilean public company.

Puri, Poonam

Professor Poonam Puri is a nationally and internationally recognized scholar of corporate law, corporate governance, investor protection and capital markets regulation. Appointed to Osgoode Hall Law School over twenty-five years ago, she has served as both Associate Dean and Associate Dean, Research, Graduate Studies and Institutional Relations at Osgoode. Professor Puri has also chaired Osgoode’s Faculty Council several times and she is currently serving as Chair of York University’s Senate. She holds the York Research Chair in Corporate Governance, Investor Protection and Financial Markets.

Professor Puri is Co-Founder and Director of the Osgoode Investor Protection Clinic, a clinic that provides pro bono legal assistance to individuals who have suffered financial harm. She is also Founder and Director of the Business Law LLM at Osgoode Professional Development. Both are the first of their kind in Canada.

A prolific scholar, Professor Puri has co-authored/co-edited close to 100 books, book chapters, scholarly articles in leading journals, and commissioned research reports. She has presented at over 200 invited keynotes, conferences and public addresses in Canada and around the world.

Professor Puri is a recipient of several prestigious fellowships and has received over $5 million in external research and program funding, including five SSHRC grants. Together with her co-investigators, she recently received $775,000 from both York University and the University of Toronto in order to conduct research on digital currencies. Professor Puri’s scholarship is academically rigorous and firmly grounded in the realities of policy-making and law in action. Governments and regulators in Canada and internationally, including the Bank of Canada, Ministry of Finance, Treasury Board Secretariat, Industry Canada, and the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank, have called upon her expertise for financial regulation that serves the public interest.

In the community, Professor Puri currently serves on multiple boards, including the Canada Infrastructure Bank and Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, the latter as Chair. She has previously served as a Commissioner of the Ontario Securities Commission and on the boards of Women’s College Hospital and the Greater Toronto Airport Authority (Pearson Airport), among others. Her public and private sector board work has provided her with valuable experience and skills in financial management, strategic planning, operational oversight, labour relations and stakeholder engagement.

Poonam has been recognized with the Attorney General of Ontario’s David Walter Mundell Medal, the Royal Society of Canada’s Yvan Allaire Medal, the Law Society of Ontario’s Law Society Medal, among other distinctions. She has also previously been named one of Canada’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers and one of Canada’s Top 40 under 40 leaders.

Awards and Professional Honours (Selected)

  • Osgoode Hall Law School Award for Excellence in Teaching (1999, 2009, 2022)
  • Peter Dey Governance Achievement Award, Governance Professionals of Canada (2022)
  • Yvan Allaire Medal for Outstanding Contributions in Governance, Royal Society of Canada (2021)
  • Law Society Medal, Law Society of Ontario (2021)
  • Walter Mundell Medal for Excellence in Legal Writing, Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General (2020)
  • Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada, Canadian Lawyer Magazine (2015, 2017)
  • Canada’s 100 Most Powerful Women Award: Trailblazers & Trendsetters (2011)
  • Female Lawyer of the Year, South Asian Bar Association of Toronto (2010)
  • Female Professional of the Year, Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (2008)
  • Canada’s Top 40 under 40 Award (2005)
  • Arbor Award, University of Toronto’s highest award for alumni volunteers (2004)

Visiting Professorships

  • University of Toronto, Faculty of Law (2022-2023, 2023-2024)
  • National University of Singapore, Faculty of Law (2021)
  • P. Jindal Global University, Jindal Global Law School (2017)
  • University of Western Ontario, Faculty of Law (2007)
  • University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management (2006 – 2007)
  • Cornell Law School (2001 – 2002)

Research Fellowships

  • Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellowship (2016).
  • Ninth Annual Lloyd Houlden Fellowship (2015).
  • Walter Gordon Fellowship (2010 – 2011).
  • Fulbright Faculty Fellowship (2000 – 2001).

Representative Publications

  • Veneris, Andreas, Fan Long, Andreas Park & Poonam Puri, “Central Bank Digital Loonie: Canadian Cash for a New Global Economy” (2021) Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper
  • Puri, Poonam, “Governance in a Time of Crisis” in Ben-Ishai, ed, Dangerous Opportunities: Examining the Home Capital Crisis (U of T Press, 2021)
  • Anand, Anita, Stephen Choi, Adam C. Pritchard & Poonam Puri, “An Empirical Comparison of Insider Trading Enforcement in Canada and the United States” (2019) 57Intl Rev L & Econ 49
  • Puri, Poonam, “Securities Class Actions in Canada: 10 Years Later” in Jessica Erickson (Richmond), Sean Griffith (Fordham), David Webber (Boston) and Verity Winship (Illinois), eds, Research Handbook on Representative Shareholder Litigation (Edward Elgar, 2018)
  • Halpern, Paul, Caroline Cakebread, Chris Nichols & Poonam Puri, Back from the Brink: Lessons from the Canadian Asset Backed Commercial Paper Crisis (Toronto: U of T Press, 2016)
  • Puri, Poonam, Anita Anand, Ron Daniels, Edward Iacobucci, Ian Lee, & Jacob Ziegel, Cases and Materials on the Law of Partnerships and Business Organizations in Canada, 6th ed. (Toronto: Carswell, 2016)

Teaching Expertise (Selected)

  • Boards of Directors
  • Corporate Governance
  • Corporations
  • Corporate & White Collar Crime
  • Investor Protection
  • Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Securities Regulation

X (Twitter): @PPuri_Osgoode

Osgoode Investor Protection Clinic

Pilkington, Marilyn L.

Marilyn Pilkington is Associate Professor and former Dean (1993-98) of Osgoode Hall Law School (York University). She joined the faculty in 1980 and retired in 2013. She is co-author (with Frank Iacobucci and Robert Prichard) of Canadian Business Corporations Law (Canada Law Book 1977), co-author of Evidence: A Canadian Casebook (2nd edn. 2006), and author of articles and reports on constitutional law, constitutional litigation, evidence, legal education and enforcement of securities laws. Prior to joining the Osgoode faculty, she served as law clerk to The Hon. Mr. Justice Judson, Supreme Court of Canada, and practised civil litigation with Tory Tory DesLauriers & Binnington (now Torys LLP).  She teaches mainly in the fields of constitutional law, constitutional litigation and evidence. She has also taught trial advocacy, civil procedure, legal profession and a seminar on the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Professor Pilkington has broad experience as a member of university policy bodies, professional regulatory bodies, public policy research institutes, search committees and boards of not-for-profit organizations.  She has served as an elected Bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada (1999 to 2003), Chair of its Specialist Certification Board, Chair of its Discipline Appeal Panel, and a member of various policy committees and task forces.   She was appointed by the provincial government to the Ontario Council on University Affairs (advising the Minister of Colleges and Universities) and to the Commission on the Future Role of Universities in Ontario. She served for 16 years as a Director and Trustee of the Institute for Research on Public Policy, and she was a  member of the founding taskforce of the Ontario Justice Education Network.  She is a past Director of the Toronto City Mission, a former Governor of the Shaw Festival and a recently retired Trustee of the Royal Ontario Museum. In each of these capacities, she served as chair of the governance committee. She currently serves as a member of the three-person Independent Review Committee of Vanguard Investments Canada.

Ms. Pilkington is experienced as a litigator, adjudicator, and consultant. She has served as an international consultant on the reform of legal education, as an external reviewer of Canadian law school programs, as a consultant to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee (on constitutional and dispute resolution issues pertaining to the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement), and as a consultant to the Law Society of Upper Canada, governments and law firms. She has contributed to law reform projects on Crown Liability and Commissions of Inquiry. She has adjudicated in the fields of human rights (federally and provincially), professional discipline and university discipline, and is appointed to the roster of candidates to serve on panels established under chapter 19 of the North American Free Trade Agreement.  She is also called upon from time to time to serve as independent chair of corporate and public meetings and to mediate or arbitrate disputes.   She has served as counsel to The Hon. Peter de C. Cory on his review of the Medical Audit System in Ontario and as his co-author on a study of Critical Issues in the Enforcement of Securities Law in Canada for the Task Force on the Modernization of Securities Law in Canada.

Under Marilyn Pilkington’s leadership as Dean, Osgoode Hall Law School restructured in response to significant government funding cuts. Enrolment in the LLB program was reduced to facilitate improvements to the program, and significant new initiatives and enrolments were developed at the graduate level, including the Osgoode Professional Development program for practising lawyers.  The OPD is a unique program responding to the need for advanced and specialist education beyond the JD and, in addition to a range of continuing legal education programs, offers part-time LLM programs in more than fifteen specialist fields.   During her deanship, substantial external funding was attracted to the Law School to support program development, facilities renewal, bursaries and new research initiatives.  Despite the deep financial cuts, no deficits were incurred and the academic budget was significantly expanded. This strategic development of the law school emerged from the prior work of the Special Committee on Academic Planning, which Professor Pilkington had chaired.

McCamus, John D.

John D. McCamus has been a Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School since 1971.  Prior to his faculty appointment, he served as Law Clerk to the Honourable Mr. Justice Laskin of the Supreme Court of Canada.  He teaches Contract, Commercial and Consumer Transactions, Contract Remedies, and Restitution. Professor McCamus is the author of The Law of Contracts, The Law of Restitution, editor of Freedom of Information: Canadian Perspectives, and co-editor of National Security:  Surveillance and Accountability in a Democratic Society, and Cases and Materials on Contracts, 3d ed.  Additionally, he has written several articles covering various aspects of the law of restitution, contracts, freedom of information, and the protection of privacy.  He is a member of the Advisory Committee for the Restatement of Restitution 3d.  Professor McCamus has a notable history of contribution to law reform efforts.  He has produced a number of research monographs for the Ontario Law Reform Commission and served as its Chair from 1992 to 1996.  In 1996-97, he chaired the Ontario Legal Aid Review.  Professor McCamus served as Dean of the Law School from 1982 to 1987.  His academic service also includes former positions as Assistant and Associate Dean, and Director of Osgoode Hall Law School’s Graduate Program.

Johnson, Tom

A member of the Osgoode Hall Law School faculty since 1987, Professor Tom Johnson has served as Co-Director of the Schulich and Osgoode joint JD/MBA Program, Director of Osgoode’s Intensive Program in Business Law, Director of the Osgoode Business Clinic, and Co-Director of Osgoode’s LLM Program in Bankruptcy and Insolvency.

Professor Johnson’s areas of teaching include contract law, commercial law (secured transactions, bankruptcy and insolvency, capital market regulation and international business transactions), international development and project finance.  He is a recipient of the Osgoode Teaching Excellence Award.

Professor Johnson has more than 25 years of experience as a consultant to the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, working on access to finance and land tenure reform projects in developing countries.  In that role he has advised governments in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Hutchinson, Allan C.

A member of Osgoode’s faculty since 1982, Professor Allan Hutchinson served as Associate Dean from 1994 to 1996 and later, in 2003, he was named Associate Dean (Research, Graduate Studies and External Relations). Professor Hutchinson is a legal theorist with an international reputation for his original and provocative writings. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2004 and named a Distinguished Research Professor by York University in 2006.  His research interests are law and politics; legal theory; the legal profession; constitutional law; torts; jurisprudence; civil procedure; and racism and law. As well as publishing in most of the common-law world’s leading law journals, he has written or edited many books. Much of his work has been devoted to examining the failure of law to live up to its democratic promise. His latest publications are Evolution and the Common Law (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and The Companies We Keep: Corporate Governance for a Democratic Society (Irwin Law, 2006). In 2007, he received the University-wide Teaching Award and was a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School.

Research Interests: Public Law, Legal Profession, Legal Theory

Geva, Benjamin

Dr. Benjamin Geva is a Professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. He specializes in (domestic, comparative and international) commercial, financial and banking law, particularly in payment and credit instruments, fund transfers, electronic transferable transport documents, letters of credit, electronic banking, central banking, money & currency, digital currencies, and assets, and the regulation of the payment system. He obtained his LLB (cum laude) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1970) and his LLM and SJD at Harvard, and was admitted to the Ontario Bar in 1982. He has been on the Osgoode faculty since 1977. He practised with Blake, Cassels and Graydon in Toronto and is now (part-time) counsel with Torys where he is a member of the Payments and Cards Practice Group.

He was awarded prestigious competitive grants among others by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Foundation of Legal Research of the Canadian Bar Association and has written extensively in his areas of expertise, including a monograph on Financing Consumer Sales and Product Defences in Canada and the US (Toronto: Carswell, 1984), a treatise on the Law of Electronic Funds Transfer (New York: Matthew Bender, 1992, kept current with annual updates (since 1997 with contributors) until 2020, a comparative law text on Bank Collections and Payment Transactions (Oxford: OUP, 2001), a monograph on The Payment Order of Antiquity and the Middle Ages – A Legal History (Oxford and Oregon: Hart Publishing, 2011), and a text co-written with Dr. Sagi Peari on International Negotiable Instruments (Oxford: OUP, 2020).  As well, he is the founding editor in chief of the Banking and Finance Law Review (BFLR) (1986- 2018) and is now Chair of its Advisory Board.

He held visiting positions, in the United States at the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, the University of Utah and Northwestern University as well as in the summer program of Duke University in Hong Kong; in Israel at Tel Aviv University; in Australia in Monash, Deakin, Melbourne and Sydney Universities; in Singapore at the National University of Singapore, in Germany in the University of Hamburg, and in France at the faculté de droit et de science politique d’Aix-Marseille. He has been a Visitor at the law faculties of Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England and at Max-Planck Institute for Comparative and Private International Law in Hamburg (Germany), as well as a Senior Global Research Fellow at the Hauser Global Visitors Program at New York University School of Law, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Vienna (Austria), and Visiting Scholar at the International Trade Law Division of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, (the substantive secretariat of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) in Vienna).

Under the IMF technical assistance program he has advised and drafted key financial sector and payment systems legislation for the authorities of several countries, particularly, on missions for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Haiti, Serbia, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Timor-Leste, and Sri Lanka. For UNCITRAL he has been working on electronic transferable transport documents.  Both  in Canada and  the United States and  also in the international arena he has been either a member or an observer in legislative committees and drafting working or study groups in the areas of personal property security, securities transfers, letters of credits & independent guarantees, and payment laws.

His current research is on digital currencies and assets, payment and settlement laws and systems,  electronic transferable transport documents, and a text on General Principles of Canadian Law on Negotiable Instruments and Payment Transactions (to be published by Irwin Law)

Condon, Mary G.

Mary Condon served as Dean of Osgoode Hall Law School from July 1, 2019 to August 31, 2023.  She served as Interim Dean from May 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019 and as Associate Dean (Academic) from July 2016 to June 2018. Professor Condon teaches Securities Regulation and Advanced Securities in Osgoode’s JD program and also directs and teaches in the Professional LLM in Securities Law program. Her research interests are focused primarily on the regulation of securities markets, investment funds, online investing, and pensions. She is co-author of Business Organizations: Practice, Theory and Emerging Challenges (with Robert Yalden, Janis Sarra, Paul Paton, Mark Gillen, Carol Liao, Michael Deturbide, Mohamed Khimji, Bradley Bryan and Gary Campo). She is co-author of Securities Law in Canada: Cases and Commentary (with Anita Anand, Janis Sarra and Sarah Bradley), [3rd edition, 2017]. She is the author of Making Disclosure: Ideas and Interests in Ontario Securities Regulation (UTP). She has also written articles, book chapters and policy papers on topics related to securities regulation and pensions policy and has given invited lectures on these topics in Canada and internationally.

In October 2023, she was appointed as a part-time adjudicator of the Capital Markets Tribunal (Ontario). In January 2024, she was appointed a member of the Central Bank of Ireland Commission. Between 2018 and 2021, she was appointed a member of the board of the Capital Markets Authority Implementation Organization (CMAIO), an interim body set up to assist with the establishment of a Capital Markets Regulatory Authority for co-operating jurisdictions in Canada. Between 2008 and 2016 she was appointed by the Ontario government as a Commissioner and Board Member of the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC). For three of those years (2011-2014) she served as one of two full-time Vice-Chairs of the OSC. In that capacity she was executive sponsor of a number of policy initiatives. She also issued numerous adjudicative decisions as a member of the OSC’s tribunal.

In 2018, she was named one of the top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada (Public Sector Category) by Women’s Executive Network.  Between 2014 and 2016 she served as a member of Canada’s National Steering Committee for Financial Literacy. She was a member of the Board of Trustees of the York University Pension Fund between 2005 and 2014.  In the 2009 winter term, she was awarded the Walter S. Owen Chair at the Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia, where she was also the co-director of the National Centre for Business Law. She joined the Osgoode faculty in 1992, having been the first recipient of the Alan Marks Medal for her doctoral thesis at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.

Research Interests: Corporate/Securities Law, Pensions, Feminist Legal Studies

Ben-Ishai, Stephanie

Professor Stephanie Ben-Ishai is a Distinguished Research Professor and Full Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, where she engages in research and teaching on bankruptcy, contract, commercial law, and financial crises. She has authored or co-authored nine books and more than 50 refereed articles, including seminal and innovative texts on bankruptcy and contract law. She holds her LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School, and her LLM from Harvard Law School, where she studied as a Fulbright Scholar and SSHRC Doctoral Scholar as well as receiving the American Bankruptcy Institute Medal of Excellence on graduation.

Professor Ben-Ishai has been nationally and internationally recognized as an expert in each of her research areas. She has been consulted by private actors, governments and self-regulatory institutions, and served as a Scholar in Residence with the Law Commission of Ontario. Her work has been cited by every level of Canadian court and she has given expert testimony to Canadian and American courts. Professor Ben-Ishai’s research has been consistently funded by research grants, including four major Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grants as Principal Investigator; other significant grants have been provided by the Law Foundation of Ontario, the Law Commission of Canada, Industry Canada, and the Schulich School of Business National Research Program in Financial Services and Public Policy.

An active participant in domestic and international professional committees, research networks and law reform efforts, Professor Ben-Ishai also serves as Co-Founder and Editor of the Insolvency Institute of Canada Law Journal, established in 2011. To date, she has held visiting professorships at eight law schools in four countries, and has served as an INSOL International Scholar, Distinguished Fulbright Fellow, Sprout Fellow in Canadian Studies and the Thomas Feeney Visiting Professor of Business Law. Her research contributions have been presented at conferences around the world to lay audiences, lawyers, judges and academic colleagues from a wide range of academic disciplines.

Professor Ben-Ishai has taught courses across the private law curriculum in multiple formats (online, video conference, seminar, lecture and small group) of varying lengths and intensity across Canada, in the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand at the undergraduate law and social science and graduate levels. She also serves as the Academic Director of the Osgoode Business Clinic, which provides legal advice to small businesses which might not otherwise be able to afford legal services.

At Osgoode, Professor Ben-Ishai has held a number of senior administrative responsibilities, including as Director of the graduate programs in Bankruptcy and Banking and Finance Law. She has chaired almost every major Law School committee, including, most recently, the Faculty Recruitment Committee and Faculty Council, served on the University Senate and as a Director of Parkdale Community Legal Services.

Professor Ben-Ishai has supervised graduate level research in bankruptcy, banking, contracts, corporate/commercial law, and financial regulation. She is willing to read novel proposals in this area from strong students interested in working with her.

Research Interests: Corporate/Commercial Law