Mark Warner was interviewed by the Canadian Press about an alleged White House threat to order 3M to stop exporting its surgical-grade face masks – crucial medical supplies in the global COVID-19 pandemic – to Canada and Latin America. (April 3, 2020) 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. Mr. Warner has assisted pharmaceutical clients in the global distribution of HIV / AIDS anti-retroviral drugs and the development of innovative patient access programs in the developing world.

Mr. Warner was Legal Director of the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development & Trade and led the Province’s legal team for the insolvency / restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler in the difficult context of the 2008-2009 Recession, and advised on trade negotiations and dispute settlement and on economic development, research and innovation grants and loans to corporations, including Huawei. As Legal Director of the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, Mr. Warner 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. 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 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. He is frequently interviewed in print, radio and television on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement.