Tag Archives: Digital Media

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 quoted in the Tyee about the decision of the Canadian Competition Bureau to close its three-year criminal conspiracy investigation into the swapping and closing of newspapers by Postmedia and Torstar. (March 1, 2021) 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. As counsel at the OECD Trade Directorate, Mark advised on 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 is also a former Acting Legal Director of the Ontario Ministry of Consumer Services and was responsible for prosecutions under the Consumer Protection Act (Ontario).

Mark Warner commented in the Hollywood Reporter on President Trump’s stated intention to “tweak” the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on the North American film industry. (February 28, 2017) 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 was Legal Director of the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development & Trade and provided legal advice on trade law in addition to issues related to the Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC), the Ontario Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit (OIDMTC) and Ontario’s grants and loans to digital media media companies including, the negotiation of  a $263 million / ten year grant to Ubisoft SA to invest a half a billion dollars in a digital media studio in Toronto. 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.