Faculty - OsgoodePD

Top notch instruction from industry thought leaders.

Tap into the minds of leading academics, judges, senior practitioners and industry experts—each a leader in their respective specialization. Learn more about the diverse range of scholars for this program.

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Business Law Faculty

Program Director,

Martin Petrin

Martin Petrin is the Jarislowsky Dimma Mooney Chair in Corporate Governance at York University, with a joint appointment at Osgoode Hall Law School and the Schulich School of Business. He is an internationally recognized scholar whose research interests are in corporate governance and business law, often from a comparative perspectiv. Most recently, his research has focused on the impact of AI and new technologies, corporate regulation, corporate and managerial liability, mergers & acquisitions, and corporate theory.

Prior to joining York University, Professor Petrin held the inaugural Dancap Private Equity Chair in Corporate Governance at Western University (with cross-appointments at the Faculty of Law and Department of Management), where he also served as Associate Chair Research for the Management Department. He was previously a Full Professor, Vice Dean (Innovation & Enterprise), and Deputy Director of the Centre for Commercial Law at University College London, UK.

Professor Petrin has been a Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore (twice, including as the Kwa Geok Choo Distinguished Visitor), a Distinguished Fellow and Visiting Professor at the Notre Dame London Law Program, a Visiting Professor at NYU London, and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law. He holds an S.J.D. from UCLA School of Law, an LL.M. (Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar) from Columbia Law School, and a Ph.D. and J.D. (both magna cum laude) from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.

A prolific scholar, Professor Petrin has authored or co-authored several books, including the leading textbook Corporate Governance: Law, Regulation and Theory (2nd edition, 2025) and Corporate Duties to the Public (Cambridge University Press, 2019). He is also the co-editor of the Research Handbook on Corporate Liability (Eward Elgar, 2023) and Understanding the Modern Company (Cambridge University Press, 2017). His work has appeared in top-tier journals including the Yale Journal on Regulation Bulletin, Columbia Business Law Review, Penn State Law Review, Modern Law Review, American University Law Review, and Canadian Business Law Review. His scholarship has been cited by courts including the Delaware Court of Chancery and has been featured in policy forums and media outlets including The Hill Times and Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

Professor Petrin’s research has been supported by major grants, including a SSHRC Insight Grant on AI and corporate governance (as Principal Investigator), a Law Foundation of Ontario Responsive Grant (as collaborator), a Swiss National Science Foundation Research Fellowship, and an ECGI Collaboration Sponsorship. He received the Western Research Excellence Award (Outstanding Scholar category) in 2023 and the EXALT Excellence Award for Legal Teaching in 2018.

Before entering academia, Professor Petrin practiced corporate and business law at an international law firm, advising clients on corporate governance, M&A transactions, private equity investments, and D&O liability. He is admitted to the Bar in New York and Switzerland.

Professor Petrin is a Research Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), was previously on the Board of Directors of Startup Help (a non-profit supporting entrepreneurship for marginalized communities), and holds an NFP Board Governance Certificate from the ICD and Rotman School of Management. He frequently serves as a consultant, a peer reviewer for leading academic journals and publishers, and has been invited to speak at institutions worldwide, including Harvard Law School, Fordham Law School, and the National University of Singapore.

Program Director,

Poonam Puri

Professor Poonam Puri is one of Canada’s most respected scholars and commentators on issues of corporate governance, corporate law, securities law, and financial regulation. She is Professor of Law and Associate Dean, Research, Graduate Studies, and Institutional Relations at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. She is also Co-Director of the Hennick Centre for Business and Law, a joint initiative of Osgoode Hall Law School and the Schulich School of Business at York University, and was formerly the Head of Research and Policy at the Capital Markets Institute, Rotman School of Business, University of Toronto. Appointed to York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School in 1997, and a recipient of its Teaching Excellence Award in 1999 and 2009, Puri is a prolific scholar who has co-authored/edited three books and written numerous articles, book chapters and reports. She has an LL.B. degree from the University of Toronto and she holds a Master of Laws (LLM) degree from Harvard Law School. Puri’s work is academically rigorous as well as firmly grounded in the real-time of policy-making. It is for this reason that governments and regulators in Canada and internationally, including Industry Canada, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), the Canadian Senate, the Wise Persons Committee on Securities Regulation and the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank, have sought her expertise. She has advised public and private company boards of directors, and has acted as an independent expert on significant securities litigation cases and class action matters. In 2008, Puri was appointed as one of two research directors of the Canadian Ministry of Finance’s Expert Panel on Securities Regulation, which has led to the proposed national securities regulator. In 2005, she was co-research director of the Task Force to Modernize Securities Legislation and also served as a member of the Ontario Securities Commission’s Investor Advisory Committee from 2005 to 2007. She was President of the Canadian Law and Economics Association from 2006-2008. Professor Puri is a 2005 recipient of Canada’s Top 40 under 40™ award, and the 2008 recipient of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce Female Professional of the Year Award, and the 2010 recipient of the Professional Excellence Award from the Canadian Association of South Asian Lawyers and the 2010 Lawyer of the Year from the South Asian Bar Association. In 2011, Puri was named one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada by the Women Executive Network. Puri is a member of the board of directors of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority and is currently chair of its Corporate Governance and Nominating Committee. Puri also sits on the Board of Governors of Mount Sinai Hospital and is a member of the National Advisory Council for Statistics Canada.

Andrew CarlsonOpen Accordion

Barnali ChoudhuryOpen Accordion

Barnali Choudhury is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Jack & Mae Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security. Prior to joining Osgoode, she was a Professor at University College London and academic director of UCL’s Global Governance Institute.

She is an internationally recognized expert on business and international economic issues, particularly as they relate to issues of human rights. She has published numerous books, including Corporate Duties to the Public (Cambridge University Press, 2019); Understanding the Company: Corporate Governance and Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2017); and Public Services and International Trade Liberalization: Human Rights and Gender Implications (Cambridge University Press, 2012), as well as a forthcoming commentary on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Her work has appeared in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, Berkeley Business Law Journal, International & Comparative Law Quarterly, Journal of Corporate Law Studies, as well as in numerous other journals and in book chapters. It has also been featured in the Oxford Business Law Blog, the Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog and the American Society of International Law Insight, among others. She has written op-eds for the Globe and Mail, the Neue Zurcher Zeitung, and iPolitics and her work has been featured in Bloomberg Businessweek. She has held numerous research grants including a grant from the Leverhulme Trust, one of the UK’s most prestigious research bodies.

She is regularly invited to give talks and has presented her work throughout Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America and at the United Nations. She has visited at New York University, University of Cambridge, University of St. Gallen, University of Otago, and at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and Private Law. In addition to numerous academic citations, her work has been cited by the United Nations, the UK’s House of Commons, the House of Lords EU Select Committee, international arbitral tribunals and relied on by governments and international non-governmental organizations.

Christopher C. NichollsOpen Accordion

Christopher C. Nicholls holds the W. Geoff Beattie Chair in Corporate Law at the University of Western Ontario, where he was named a Faculty Scholar in 2013 and served as Acting Dean in 2023. He received a Fulbright Scholar award in 2016. He is a graduate of the University of Ottawa, Osgoode Hall Law School, and Harvard University.

He has been a Visiting Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School, a Senior Visiting Research Scholar at the Yale Law School, a Herbert Smith Visitor at the University of Cambridge, a Visiting Scholar at the University of Melbourne, a Visiting Research Scholar at the University of Tokyo, and the Falconbridge Visiting Professor of Commercial Law at Osgoode Hall Law School. He has also been a visiting professor at the law faculties of the University of Toronto and Queen’s University.

He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Canadian Business Law Journal, and a director of the Centre for Financial Innovation and Risk Management, at Western University. From 2016-2022, he served as the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada, the national self-regulatory organization for the distribution side of the Canadian mutual fund industry, and one of the two predecessor organizations of the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO). He has also previously served as the Head of Policy and Research, Capital Markets Institute, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, as a Research Fellow with the Filene Research Institute, Madison, Wisconsin, and as a member (Commissioner) of the Nova Scotia Securities Commission.

Before coming to Western Law in 2006, Professor Nicholls was for a number of years a member of the Dalhousie University Faculty of Law (now the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University) where he was the inaugural holder of the Purdy Crawford Chair in Business Law and acted as Director of Dalhousie’s LL.B. Business Law Specialization Program. Before joining Dalhousie, he practiced corporate and securities law, first with two of Toronto’s largest corporate law firms, then as a corporate finance and securities attorney in Hamilton, Bermuda.

Professor Nicholls has acted as a consultant to private law firms, government departments and regulators and has addressed academic and professional audiences in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, and South America. He has been a frequent speaker on topics relating to corporate law and mergers and acquisitions in judicial education programs organized for Canadian superior court judges by the National Judicial Institute.

In 2015, he was a member of the Business Law Agenda Expert Panel appointed by Ontario’s Minitry of Government and Consumer Services to provide recommendations for reform of Ontario’s corporate and commercial legislation. He is the author of numerous articles in the business law field as well as seven books: Corporate Law (Emond Montgomery, 2005); Financial Institutions: The Regulatory Framework (LexisNexis, 2008); Mergers, Acquisitions and Other Changes of Corporate Control 3d ed. (Irwin, 2020) (First edition published in 2007); Corporate Finance and Canadian Law 2d ed. (Carswell, 2013) (First edition published in 2001); Securities Law, 3d ed. (Irwin, 2023); Back from the Brink: Lessons from the Canadian Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Crisis (University of Toronto Press, 2016) (with Paul Halpern, Caroline Cakebread and Poonam Puri); and Duties of Securities Brokers in Canada (LexisNexis, 2021) (with Jeffrey G. MacIntosh). His work has been cited by Canadian securities commissions and by many Canadian courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada.

Delong LiOpen Accordion

Gil LanOpen Accordion

Jason KoskelaOpen Accordion

Luis SarabiaOpen Accordion

Martin Kratz, K.C.Open Accordion

Mathieu TaschereauOpen Accordion

Mohamed KhimjiOpen Accordion

Robert RichardsonOpen Accordion