Author Archives: Mark Warner

Mark Warner was interviewed on Al Jazeera English discussing the the lockout by Canada’s two main railroad companies – Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. – and the scope for the Canadian Government to end the supply chain disruption by forcing the parties into binding arbitration. (July 22, 2024) Mr. Warner is a Canadian and U.S. lawyer who has practiced in Toronto, Washington, D.C., New York and Brussels and has advised governments on trade policy and trade negotiations. Mark has advised clients on a wide-range of antitrust / competition matters in the transport sector, including aviation and railway mergers.

As Legal Director of the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development & Trade, Mark led Ontario’s legal team for the negotiation of the Canada-U.S. Agreement on Government Procurement, advised on trade disputes (including the Green Energy Act and softwood lumber) and various NAFTA Chapter 11 investor-state arbitration matters. Mr. Warner also provided advice to the Government of Ontario on the design of the Green Energy Act and related WTO dispute settlement proceedings. He also previously worked on trade and competition issues as counsel in the OECD Trade Directorate where he participated in the negotiations of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment and represented the OECD at meetings of the WTO Working Group on Trade and Competition Policy and the Working Group on Trade and Investment.

Mark is a past Chair of the International and Economics Committees of the American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law as well as a member of the Section’s Task Forces on Competition Policy and NAFTA and Antitrust in the Global Economy. He has been listed in the Euromoney / International Financial Law Review Guide to the World’s Leading Competition lawyers. In 2015, Mark was elected a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

Mark provides international trade and investment law advice to natural resources clients on trade agreements, trade remedies, sanctions, export and import controls, anti-corruption, corporate social responsibility and compliance issues as a colleague at Pilot Law which provides comprehensive legal services for developing resource businesses in the mining, energy and renewables sectors.

Mark Warner was interviewed on Global News Toronto about a potential shutdown at Canada’s two main railroad companies – Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. – if they can’t agree on a deal with the Teamsters union and the potential effects on consumer prices and trade and longer-term supply chain risks from repeated rail and port labour disruptions. (July 21, 2024) Mr. Warner is a Canadian and U.S. lawyer who has practiced in Toronto, Washington, D.C., New York and Brussels and has advised governments on trade policy and trade negotiations. Mark has advised clients on a wide-range of antitrust / competition matters in the transport sector, including aviation and railway mergers.

As Legal Director of the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development & Trade, Mark led Ontario’s legal team for the negotiation of the Canada-U.S. Agreement on Government Procurement, advised on trade disputes (including the Green Energy Act and softwood lumber) and various NAFTA Chapter 11 investor-state arbitration matters. Mr. Warner also provided advice to the Government of Ontario on the design of the Green Energy Act and related WTO dispute settlement proceedings. He also previously worked on trade and competition issues as counsel in the OECD Trade Directorate where he participated in the negotiations of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment and represented the OECD at meetings of the WTO Working Group on Trade and Competition Policy and the Working Group on Trade and Investment.

Mark is a past Chair of the International and Economics Committees of the American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law as well as a member of the Section’s Task Forces on Competition Policy and NAFTA and Antitrust in the Global Economy. He has been listed in the Euromoney / International Financial Law Review Guide to the World’s Leading Competition lawyers. In 2015, Mark was elected a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

Mark provides international trade and investment law advice to natural resources clients on trade agreements, trade remedies, sanctions, export and import controls, anti-corruption, corporate social responsibility and compliance issues as a colleague at Pilot Law which provides comprehensive legal services for developing resource businesses in the mining, energy and renewables sectors.

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Mark Warner was interviewed on on Corus Entertainment’s weeknight talk show [Starts at 1:11] about Canada’s consultations on possible tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and related products, and the trade risks of acting and not acting. (August 14, 2024) Mr. Warner is a Canadian and U.S. lawyer who has practiced in Toronto, Washington, DC and New York and has advised governments on trade policy and trade negotiations and previously worked on trade and competition issues as counsel in the OECD Trade Directorate and represented the OECD at meetings of the WTO Working Groups on Trade and Competition Policies and Trade and Investment Policies.

Mr. Warner was Legal Director of the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development & Trade and led the Ontario’s legal team for the insolvency / restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler, and various grant and loan agreements to leading automotive and automotive parts companies, including to electric car battery manufacturer, Electrovaya and and a Better Place demonstration centre and electric vehicle charging station network. Mr. Warner also advised the Auto Parts Manufacturing Association on NAFTA renegotiation issues. 

As Legal Director of the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development & Trade and the Ministry of Research & Innovation and advised on economic development, research and innovation grants and loans to corporations, including Huawei. As MEDT Legal Director, he also led Ontario’s legal team for trade negotiations and advised on trade disputes including the Japanese challenge to the Ontario Green Energy Act. Mark has been an adviser to the Governments of Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam on competition and trade policy and at the invitation of the U.S. Department of State lectured in five cities in Japan on international antitrust law and policy. As Assistant Director of the University of Baltimore’s Centre for International and Comparative Law, Mark hired a Chinese scholar to begin a research program on reforming anti-monopoly law in China, one of the first such efforts at the time.

[Starts at 1:11]

Mark Warner was quoted in the Dow Jones Newswires about Canada’s Competition Bureau suffering a setback in its efforts to go after Amazon for potentially false and misleading claims after the Federal Court rejected an order that would have forced the company to provide transaction data on hundreds of millions of products or more. (July 24, 2024) Mark is a Canadian and U.S. lawyer who has practiced in Toronto, Washington, DC and New York and has advised governments on trade policy and trade negotiations and previously worked on trade and competition issues as counsel in the OECD Trade Directorate, and represented the OECD Trade Directorate at meetings of the WTO Working Group on Trade and Competition and the Working Group on Trade and Investment.

Mark chaired an Insight Research Canadian Sharing Economy Symposium in Toronto in 2015. As a former Acting Legal Director for the Ontario Ministry of Consumer Services, Mark was responsible for prosecutions under the provincial consumer protection laws and regulations. Mark’s experience with online technologies and e-commerce includes: participating in OECD-wide policy work on laws and regulations affecting e-commerce, acting as Chair, ICC Competition Commission Working Party on E-Commerce and Competition Policy, serving as an original ICANN domain name dispute resolution arbitrator for eResolution and WIPO and as Rapporteur of the Hague Conference on Private International Law Commission on Jurisdiction for Torts in Electronic Commerce.

Mark was Legal Director of the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development & Trade and advised the Ontario Government with respect to cross-border trade in services, state enterprises and monopolies in the Canada-EU Trade Agreement (CETA) negotiations. As Legal Director of the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, Mark also led Ontario’s legal team in creating the $250 million Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund, the $205 million Ontario Venture Capital Fund and establishing the Ontario Capital Growth Corporation and advised on research and innovation grants and loans to academics, universities and corporations.

Mark Warner was featured on the CBC News Weekend Business Panel about the cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike software update paralyzing Microsoft’s Windows operating system and related cybersecurity, competition / antitrust, sanctions and compliance issues. (July 20, 2024) Mr. Warner is a Canadian and U.S. lawyer who has practiced in Toronto, Washington, D.C., New York and Brussels and has advised governments on trade policy and trade negotiations and previously worked on trade and competition issues as counsel in the OECD Trade Directorate in Paris. Mark also advises on sanctions and export controls issues, including assisting various multinational firms in developing compliance programs in these areas.

As Legal Director for the Ontario Ministry of Research & Innovation, Mr. Warner led Ontario’s legal team in creating the $250 million Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund, the $205 million Ontario Venture Capital Fund focused, in part, on the digital media and information and communications technology sectors. Mark’s experience with online technologies and e-commerce includes: participating in OECD-wide policy work on laws and regulations affecting e-commerce, acting as Chair, ICC Competition Commission Working Party on E-Commerce and Competition Policy, serving as an original ICANN domain name dispute resolution arbitrator for eResolution and WIPO and as Rapporteur of the Hague Conference on Private International Law Commission on Jurisdiction for Torts in Electronic Commerce.

As a former Acting Legal Director for the Ontario Ministry of Consumer Services, Mark was responsible for prosecutions under the provincial consumer protection laws and regulations. In private practice, he has also worked on privacy and data breach cases in the financial, retail, education and healthcare sectors. In 2015, Mark chaired a first of its kind international conference in Toronto on competition and consumer protection issues in the Sharing Economy.

Mark Warner was interviewed on BNNBloomberg talking about the risks of the United States retaliating against Canada for implementing a new Digital Services Tax on large US companies and requiring foreign streaming platforms to pay into a fund to support Canadian music, TV, film & radio under the new Online Streaming Act. (July 5, 2024) Mr. Warner is a Canadian and U.S. lawyer who has practiced in Toronto, Washington, D.C., New York and Brussels has advised governments on trade policy and trade negotiations. As counsel at the OECD Trade Directorate, Mark advised on harmful tax competition issues and worked on other trade and competition issues, participated in the negotiations of the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment and represented the OECD at meetings of the WTO Working Groups on Trade and Competition Policies and Trade and Investment Policies.

As Legal Director for the Ontario Ministry of Research & Innovation, Mr. Warner led Ontario’s legal team in creating the $250 million Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund, the $205 million Ontario Venture Capital Fund focused, in part, on the digital media and information and communications technology sectors. As Legal Director of the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development & Trade provided strategic legal advice with respect to the Ontario’s economic development, research and innovation grants and loans to leading ICT and digital media companies and led Ontario’s legal team in respect of the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic & Trade Agreement (CETA) negotiations including with respect to the Intellectual Property Chapter.

Mark’s experience with online technologies and e-commerce includes: participating in OECD-wide policy work on laws and regulations affecting e-commerce, acting as Chair, ICC Competition Commission Working Party on E-Commerce and Competition Policy, serving as an original ICANN domain name dispute resolution arbitrator for eResolution and WIPO and as Rapporteur of the Hague Conference on Private International Law Commission on Jurisdiction for Torts in Electronic Commerce.

Mark Warner was featured in a Yahoo Finance Canada article on the risks of China retaliating if Canada follows the U.S. tariff lead and imposes a surtax under section 53 of the Customs Tariff on Chinese electric vehicles and battery components. (July 5, 2024) Mr. Warner is a Canadian and U.S. lawyer who has practiced in Toronto, Washington, DC and New York and has advised governments on trade policy and trade negotiations and previously worked on trade and competition issues as counsel in the OECD Trade Directorate and represented the OECD at meetings of the WTO Working Groups on Trade and Competition Policies and Trade and Investment Policies.

Mr. Warner was Legal Director of the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development & Trade and led the Ontario’s legal team for the insolvency / restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler, and various grant and loan agreements to leading automotive and automotive parts companies, including to electric car battery manufacturer, Electrovaya and and a Better Place demonstration centre and electric vehicle charging station network. Mr. Warner also advised the Auto Parts Manufacturing Association on NAFTA renegotiation issues. 

As Legal Director of the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development & Trade and the Ministry of Research & Innovation and advised on economic development, research and innovation grants and loans to corporations, including Huawei. As MEDT Legal Director, he also led Ontario’s legal team for trade negotiations and advised on trade disputes including the Japanese challenge to the Ontario Green Energy Act. Mark has been an adviser to the Governments of Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam on competition and trade policy and at the invitation of the U.S. Department of State lectured in five cities in Japan on international antitrust law and policy. As Assistant Director of the University of Baltimore’s Centre for International and Comparative Law, Mark hired a Chinese scholar to begin a research program on reforming anti-monopoly law in China, one of the first such efforts at the time.

Mark Warner was featured in a CBC News article about the risks of possible U.S. trade challenges under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement), the USMCA or Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to Quebec’s Bill 96 language law as it affects common law trademarks. (June 11, 2024) Interestingly, there is no mention of Quebec’s Bill 96 language law common law trademark concerns in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s 2024 Special 301 Report on Intellectual Property Protection and Enforcement released in April keeping Canada on the “Special 301 Watch List”.

Mr. Warner is a Canadian and U.S. lawyer who has practiced in Toronto, Washington, D.C., New York and Brussels has advised governments on trade policy and trade negotiations. As Legal Director for the Ontario Ministry of Research & Innovation, Mr. Warner led Ontario’s legal team in creating the $250 million Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund, the $205 million Ontario Venture Capital Fund focused, in part, on the digital media and information and communications technology sectors. As Legal Director of the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development & Trade provided strategic legal advice with respect to the Ontario’s economic development, research and innovation grants and loans to leading ICT and digital media companies and led Ontario’s legal team in respect of the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic & Trade Agreement (CETA) negotiations including with respect to the Intellectual Property Chapter.

Mark’s experience with online technologies and e-commerce includes: participating in OECD-wide policy work on laws and regulations affecting e-commerce, acting as Chair, ICC Competition Commission Working Party on E-Commerce and Competition Policy, serving as an original ICANN domain name dispute resolution arbitrator for eResolution and WIPO and as Rapporteur of the Hague Conference on Private International Law Commission on Jurisdiction for Torts in Electronic Commerce.

As counsel at the OECD Trade Directorate, Mark advised on harmful tax competition issues and worked on other trade and competition issues, participated in the negotiations of the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment and represented the OECD at meetings of the WTO Working Groups on Trade and Competition Policies and Trade and Investment Policies.

Mark Warner was featured on the CBC News Weekend Business Panel talking about Live Nation confirming a data breach within a third-party cloud storage and analytics company affecting customer data of its ticketing subsidiary, Ticketmaster; slow growing mortgage debt; slow GDP growth and potential interest rate cuts in Canada. (June 1, 2024) Mark is a Canadian and U.S. lawyer who has practiced in Toronto, Washington, D.C, New York and Brussels and has advised governments on competition law and policy.

Mark is a former Acting Legal Director of the Ontario Ministry of Consumer Services, and was responsible for prosecutions under the provincial consumer protection laws and regulations. MCS is responsible for administering the Ticket Sales Act (Ontario) which establishes requirements for ticket businesses and other persons and outlines protections for purchasers of tickets to Ontario events. In private practice, he has also worked on data breach cases in the financial, retail, education and healthcare sectors. Mark’s experience with online technologies and e-commerce includes: participating in OECD-wide policy work on laws and regulations affecting e-commerce, acting as Chair, ICC Competition Commission Working Party on E-Commerce and Competition Policy, serving as an original ICANN domain name dispute resolution arbitrator for eResolution and WIPO and as Rapporteur of the Hague Conference on Private International Law Commission on Jurisdiction for Torts in Electronic Commerce.

As counsel at the OECD Trade Directorate in Paris, Mark advised on other trade and competition issues and represented the OECD at meetings of the WTO Working Group on Trade and Competition and Working Group on Trade and Investment. Mark is a past Chair of the International and Economics Committees of the American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law as well as a member of the Section’s Task Forces on Competition Policy and NAFTA and Antitrust in the Global Economy. He has been listed in the Euromoney / International Financial Law Review Guide to the World’s Leading Competition lawyers. In 2015, Mark was elected a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

Mark Warner was interviewed by the Financial Post about growing U.S.-China trade tensions and how that affects Canadian trade and investment with both countries, including in responding to U.S. tariffs on automobiles and automotive parts. (May 30, 2024) Mr. Warner is a Canadian and U.S. lawyer who has practiced in Toronto, Washington, D.C., New York and Brussels and has advised governments on trade policy and trade negotiations. Mr. Warner also previously worked on trade and competition issues as counsel in the OECD Trade Directorate where he participated in the negotiations of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment and represented the OECD at meetings of the WTO Working Group on Trade and Competition Policy and the Working Group on Trade and Investment.

Mark was Legal Director of the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development & Trade advising on trade negotiations and dispute settlement and on economic development, research and innovation grants and loans to corporations, including Huawei. He led the Ontario’s legal team for the insolvency / restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler, and the negotiation of various grant and loan agreements to leading automotive and automotive parts companies, including to electric car battery manufacturer, Electrovaya and a Better Place demonstration centre and electric vehicle charging station network, and more recently has assisted with an electrical vehicle battery manufacturing contractual dispute.

Mark has been an adviser to the Governments of Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam on competition and trade policy and at the invitation of the U.S. Department of State lectured in five cities in Japan on international antitrust law and policy.

Mark provides international trade and investment law advice to natural resources clients on trade agreements, trade remedies, Investment Canada and CFIUS issues, sanctions, export and import controls, foreign asset controls, anti-corruption, corporate social responsibility and compliance issues as a colleague at Pilot Law which provides comprehensive legal services for developing resource businesses in the mining, energy and renewables sectors.