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Clients seek Mike’s advice to navigate complex competition and foreign investment processes to achieve their most important commercial objectives. Specializing in cross-border transactions and governmental investigations into business conduct, he combines analytical precision with a pragmatic, solutions-oriented approach.

Mike is a Partner in our Competition/Antitrust & Foreign Investment Group in Toronto.

Recognized by Who’s Who Legal as a Future Leader and Expert Guides as a “Rising Star” in Competition & Antitrust, Mike provides clients with competition and foreign investment law advice across all aspects of their activities, including mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures, governmental investigations into unilateral and coordinated conduct, distribution and supply-chain arrangements, deceptive marketing practices and competition compliance programs. He has extensive experience in a wide range of industries, in particular in telecommunications, media and technology, consumer products, infrastructure and transport, pharmaceuticals and financial services.

Representative matters at McCarthy Tétrault include acting for:

• Aon plc, a UK-based global professional services firm, as Canadian counsel in its US$30 billion proposed acquisition of Willis Towers Watson
• AbbVie in its US$63 billion acquisition of Allergan
• Anixter in its US$ 4.5 billion acquisition by WESCO
• Refinitiv, the global financial data provider, in its acquisition by London Stock Exchange Group plc
• K+S AG in the sale of its Americas salt business to Stone Canyon Industries
• PepsiCo in the sale of its Tropicana and related juices business to PAI Partners
• Metso Minerals and Outotec in the combination of their minerals processing businesses
• Mondelez International in its agreement to acquire a significant majority interest in Give & Go
• L3 Technologies, Inc. in its US$33.5 billion merger with Harris Corporation
• First Data Corporation in its US$22 billion merger with Fiserv
• Brookfield Infrastructure in its US$8.4 billion acquisition of Genesee & Wyoming Inc.

Having practiced for six years in the London office of a major international law firm – which included secondments in Brussels and Washington D.C - Mike is well-versed in the global competition and foreign investment law landscape. This experience enables Mike to take a holistic approach to complex cross-border transactions and conduct matters, leaning on his experience of Phase II merger investigations before the European Commission and UK Competition & Markets Authority; merger appellate litigation before the EU’s General Court; and cartel investigations across several sectors, as well as coordinating merger clearances in many jurisdictions around the world. 

Mike currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Foreign Investment Review Committee of the Canadian Bar Association’s National Competition Law Section; and has sat on the leadership of the Joint Conduct Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Antitrust Law. He is a frequent writer and speaker on competition law topics, including in particular on comparative approaches to competition and foreign investment policy and enforcement in North America and Europe. He is the co-author of the Canada chapter of GCR’s Foreign Direct Investment Regulation Guide, and was the co-author of the UK chapter of Getting the Deal Through: Merger Control between 2015 and 2018.

Mike graduated in 2007 with a BA (Hons) in History and in 2008 with an MSt (with Distinction) in American History from the University of Oxford, where he was a Lord Crewe Scholar at Lincoln College. Mike received his Graduate Diploma in Law and Legal Practice Course qualifications from BPP Law School in London, UK. He is admitted to practice in Ontario, England & Wales and Ireland.

Mike has advised on a range of global and domestic strategic transactions, including:

• Terminal Investment Limited and its parent company, the Mediterranean Shipping Company, on the acquisition of a 49% interest in the container terminal business at the Port of Halifax
• TransAlta in its C$542 million acquisition of Heartland Generation from Energy Capital Partners
• Waste Connections on its acquisition of the oilfield waste services business of Secure Energy Services for $1.075 billion pursuant to the Competition Tribunal’s divestiture order following the acquisition of Tervita by Secure Energy Services
• Rio Tinto on its aluminium join venture with Matalco
• Certarus Ltd. in its acquisition by Superior Plus Corporation for C$1.05 billion
• Daseke, Inc. in its US$1.1 billion acquisition by TFI International Inc
• Hitachi Rail on its proposed acquisition of Thales’ Ground Transportation System business for an enterprise value of €1,660 million
• Aon plc, a UK-based global professional services firm, as Canadian counsel in its US$30 billion proposed acquisition of Willis Towers Watson
• Score Media and Gaming on its US$2 billion acquisition by Penn National Gaming
• AbbVie in its US$63 billion acquisition of Allergan
• Anixter in its US$ 4.5 billion acquisition by WESCO
• Refinitiv, the global financial data provider, in its acquisition by London Stock Exchange Group plc
• K+S AG in the sale of its Americas salt business to Stone Canyon Industries
• Metso Minerals and Outotec in the combination of their minerals processing businesses
• Mondelez International in its agreement to acquire a significant majority interest in Give & Go
• L3 Technologies, Inc. in its US$33.5 billion merger with Harris Corporation First Data Corporation in its US$22 billion merger with Fiserv
• Brookfield Infrastructure in its US$8.4 billion acquisition of Genesee & Wyoming Inc.

Having practiced for six years in the London office of a major international law firm – which included secondments in Brussels and Washington, D.C. - Mike is well-versed in the global competition and foreign investment law landscape. This experience enables Mike to take a holistic approach to complex cross-border transactions and conduct matters, leaning on his experience of Phase II merger investigations before the European Commission and UK Competition & Markets Authority; merger appellate litigation before the EU’s General Court; and cartel investigations across several sectors, as well as coordinating merger clearances in many jurisdictions around the world.

Mike currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Mergers Committee of the Canadian Bar Association’s National Competition Law Section; and is a past-Chair of the section’s Foreign Investment Review Committee. He has also sat on the leadership of the Joint Conduct Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Antitrust Law. He is acknowledged to be a thought leader on competition law topics, including in particular on comparative approaches to competition and foreign investment policy and enforcement in North America and Europe. He is the co-author of the Canada chapter of GCR’s Foreign Direct Investment Regulation Guide, and was the co-author of the UK chapter of Getting the Deal Through: Merger Control between 2015 and 2018.

Mike graduated in 2007 with a BA (Hons) in History and in 2008 with an MSt (with Distinction) in American History from the University of Oxford, where he was a Lord Crewe Scholar at Lincoln College. Mike received his Graduate Diploma in Law and Legal Practice Course qualifications from BPP Law School in London, UK. He is admitted to practice in Ontario and England & Wales.