Tag Archives: BEPS

Mark Warner was featured in a Globe and Mail article about the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting two-pillar solution to address the tax challenges arising from the digitalisation of the economy, including a global deal reached on a 15% minimum corporate tax rate. (October 8, 2021) 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, Mr. Warner advised on harmful tax competition issues and worked on other trade and competition issues. 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 and establishing the Ontario Capital Growth Corporation. 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 corporations and led Ontario’s legal team for trade negotiations and trade and investment disputes. He is co-author of a leading Canadian trade law treatise, has also published numerous articles and has been invited to speak at conferences around the world.

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 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.

I published this 2015 Year in Review – Personal Reflections on LinkedIn:

As another year comes to a close, I thought I would reflect on some of the more interesting places that my practice took me to this year. The year began with an unexpected honour – being elected as a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and later in June I traveled to London to attend a Fellows celebration of Magna Carta, which remains such an important foundation stone for law and lawyers.

Every once in a while a client file comes along that similarly sends me back to the first principles in the areas of law in which I practice. In 2015, for me one such moment came in advising a maverick polling firm. My client believed itself to be facing an existential challenge from a dominant firm competitor leading the charge to form a trade association to establish rules with the express aim of disciplining the polling methods of rivals against the backdrop of the most intense and hard fought Canadian election in a generation. It has become an axiom of antitrust / competition law that the goal is “to protect competitors, not competition” however in some fast-moving markets, it is clear that the failure to act  to preserve the “rules of the road” or a “level playing field” can yield unintended consequences.

Innovation and change also figured prominently in two conferences that I participated in this year. In June, I attended a stimulating Federal Trade Commission Workshop on The “Sharing” Economy: Issues Facing Platforms, Participants, and Regulators. This gave me the idea to partner with Insight Information to hold a first of its kind Canadian Sharing Economy Symposium in Toronto that would peel back the onion to take a detailed look at competition, consumer protection, labour, taxation, insurance and municipal planning issues at the heart of understanding and resolving the tensions created by the new markets and modes of competition created by this new “gig” or technology-enabled “on demand” economy.

Challenges to markets not only come from within, but also from outside. In 2015, I was called upon frequently to discuss trade and investment issues, most notably in relation to the negotiation and conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (“TPP”) Agreement. I was interviewed on television on BNN, CTV, CBC and CPAC, and on radio on AM980 CFPL,  quoted in articles in the Ottawa Citizen, the Toronto Sun (and Sputnik News) and published a much-read Huffington Post blog and two Op Eds in the Toronto Sun on the TPP.

Just as businesses are beginning to evaluate the threats and opportunities posed by new technologies and new trading frameworks, they also need to be aware of emerging regulatory convergence and enforcement cooperation in areas such as antitrust / competition law but also other forms of so-called “white collar” crime such as money laundering, bribery and corruption. The importance of appropriate compliance programs was underscored by my invitation to give a speech in Sao Paulo, Brazil on competition, corruption and corporate governance in the midst of the Petrobras and Lavalin scandals engulfing Brazilian and Canadian “national champions”.  I also participated on a panel on educating business leaders for integrity at a conference at York University’s Schulich School of Business sponsored by the Canadian Business Ethnics Research Network.

One industry with which I have long been affiliated that is at the forefront of all the issues of innovation, international convergence, compliance and governance is the pharmaceutical industry. So not surprisingly it came up often in my discussion and advice relating to the TPP. In April, I also traveled to Rutgers School of Law to give a talk on competition, trade & investment issues affecting the pharmaceutical industry.

The theme of investment figured prominently in two other 2015 events that I participated in. In November I was invited to lecture at the Ivey Business School at Western University on business, government & globalization issues in investor-state dispute settlement, prosecution of foreign bribery & corruption and corporate social responsibility and foreign affiliate liability. I also returned to Panama to participate in a conference to address global tax initiatives affecting trade and investment in services in panama. My role was to try to make sense of the WTO panel decision on a case brought by Panama on countermeasures by Argentina on services and service suppliers from jurisdictions that do not exchange information for the purposes of fiscal transparency.

2015 was a fun and interesting year, and in 2016 I look forward continuing to work on cutting-edge issues of innovation, competition, investment and trade giving advice to businesses and trade associations on compliance, governance and transactions and to governments on legislative and regulatory design.

And so let me take this opportunity to offer all of you, my best wishes for a safe Holiday Season and a prosperous new year!

Mark Warner participated in a Conference to address Global Tax Initiatives Affecting Trade and Investment in Services in Panama with Aristides Royo, Former President of Republic of Panama, Gian Castillero, President of the Panamanian Association of International Lawyers and  Daniel J. Mitchell, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. (November 19, 2015) Mark will discuss recent international tax and investment initiatives of the OECD, UNECOSOC, UNCTAD and the Argentina / Panama WTO panel decision on countermeasures on services and service suppliers from jurisdictions that do not exchange information for the purposes of fiscal transparency.

Mark has advised on foreign corrupt practices, foreign asset controls, anti-money laundering and export controls issues, including assisting various multinational firms in developing compliance programs in these areas. Notable work included: advising a multinational pharmaceutical company in connection with corruption issues relating to its “access” drug distribution program in Africa; advising on the OECD horizontal work on Harmful Tax Competition and Financial Disclosure as an OECD legal counsel and in private practice; and serving as a member of the Task Force on Information Exchange and Financial Privacy of the Prosperity Institute, chaired by former Senator Mack Mattingly and with former Congressman Jack Kemp and former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese.