BA (Western Ontario), LLB (Osgoode), LLM (LSE)
Lawrence Ritchie recently re-joined Osler,Hoskin & Harcourt LLP to chair it’s cross-disciplinary Risk Management and Crisis Response practice group. He also co-chairs the firm’s national Capital Markets Regulatory Enforcement and Broker-Dealer Disputes team. Among other things, he advises public corporations, their directors, officers, and in-house counsel on avoiding, preparing for, managing and responding to extraordinary “crisis” situations. He acts for clients in connection with conducting and responding to internal and regulatory investigations, with defending parties resulting in regulatory proceedings, class actions and related litigation. He has extensive experience, in particular in identifying and addressing regulatory and other enforcement issues encountered by participants in the Canadian capital markets, providing proactive corporate governance and other risk management advisory services, and represents clients when necessary to address relevant matters with regulators, self-regulatory organizations and in the courts.
In 2007, Mr. Ritchie was appointed Vice-Chair of the Ontario Securities Commission, where he served as a member of the Commission’s Board of Directors, and its Executive Management and Adjudicative Committees, and sat on and chaired adjudicative panels.
From late 2009 until the completion of his term as OSC Vice-Chair in February 2014, Mr. Ritchie was seconded to the Canadian Securities Transition Office (the organization supporting the federal government’s initiative for a Canadian common securities regulator). He served as the CSTO’s Executive Vice President and Senior Policy Advisor and, since his return to Osler, remains Senior Policy Advisor to the CSTO.
Prior to the OSC, Mr. Ritchie was a litigation partner with Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, where his practice included a range of securities, governance and business litigation matters, including regulatory investigations and proceedings.
He holds a BA in Economics and Politics from the University of Western Ontario, an LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School and an LLM from the London School of Economics.