Lawrence Ritchie

Lawrence Ritchie is a litigator and former securities regulator.  He chairs Osler’s cross-disciplinary Risk Management and Crisis Response practice group and co-leads its 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, including regulatory investigations and actions that flow from them.  He acts for clients in connection with conducting and responding to internal and regulatory investigations, and defends parties 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, as well as on corruption matters, 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, Larry was appointed Vice-Chair of the Ontario Securities Commission, and in late 2009 he served as Executive Vice-President and Senior Policy Advisor to the Canadian Securities Transition Office (the organization supporting the federal government's initiative for a Canadian common securities regulator).  In 2018, Larry was appointed as a member of the recently  established Financial Services Regulatory Authority, the regulator that  replace FSCO (the Financial Service Commission of Ontario) and DICO (the Deposit Insurance Corporation of Ontario), and which will oversee the operations of the Financial Services Tribunal in 2019. In 2015, Larry served on the 3-person expert panel which recommended that the Ontario government establish FSRA.

 

Larry is an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, teaches at the Institute of Corporate Director’s Director’s Education Program and has lectured and written on various legal governance, enforcement and regulatory topics. He chairs the independent review committee of a Canadian mutual fund and serves on a number of not-for-profit boards.  He received his BA in Economics and Politics from the University of Western Ontario, his LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School, and his LLM from the London School of Economics.