Melissa MacKewn has been widely recognized within the profession as one of Canada’s leading securities and corporate commercial litigation lawyers. In addition to being recognized by Benchmark Canada as one of the Top Women in Litigation since 2017, Melissa was named the Lawyer of the Year for Securities Law in the Toronto area by Best Lawyers in Canada in 2018 and 2022. Melissa has also been recognized by Lexpert as one of the Top 500 Lawyers in Canada, by Chambers Canada as a leader in the field of securities litigation and by Best Lawyers in Canada as a leader in the fields of corporate commercial and securities litigation.
Melissa’s expertise is unique in that she acts on a wide range of securities regulatory matters before the OSC and CIRO, both on the prosecution and defence side. Melissa routinely acts as counsel on compliance and registrant regulation matters and enforcement investigations, settlements and contested proceedings involving such issues as insider trading, disclosure violations and market manipulation. Melissa also acts as outside prosecution counsel on complex disciplinary matters before the Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario and is regularly retained to advise on matters before other regulatory authorities across the country in the insurance and financial sectors.
Melissa maintains an active commercial litigation practice and has appeared before all levels of Court in Ontario. She advises investors, registrants, issuers, officers, directors, underwriters and private and public corporations on a variety of corporate and securities matters, including securities class action proceedings, corporate and shareholder disputes, oppression remedy matters, proxy battles, corporate governance matters, investment loss claims, breach of contract and professional negligence matters. Melissa’s significant expertise on disciplinary regulatory matters, as both prosecutor and defence counsel, allows her to strategically advise her professional clients in the complex context of concurrent civil and regulatory proceedings.
Updated July 2023
