Ellen Bessner is an experienced, tough minded and common-sense commercial litigator with over 25 years of practice at prominent Canadian firms, and now with Babin Bessner Spry LLP. Ellen has acted as counsel before Ontario courts of all levels, as well as at many arbitrations and regulatory proceedings, including before the IIROC, MFDA (now the “New SRO”), OSC and FSCO/FSRA, representing clients across Canada. Ellen is a leader in commercial and securities litigation, employment litigation, professional negligence, class actions, regulatory matters, insurance defence, directors’ and officers’ liability and has regularly been retained to advise boards of directors and senior officers on issues of compliance.
Ellen is the author of the bestselling book Advisor at Risk, a Roadmap to Protecting Your Business and has recently written the sequel Communication Risk, How to Bridge the Client-Advisor Gap to Protect and Grow Your Business. Her books are leading risk management tools for professionals in the financial services industry. She is an expert speaker in the area of risk and writes on the subject in the national, business and industry press.
At Babin Bessner Spry LLP, Ellen provides her popular and effective work in developing and presenting training and education programs for officers and directors, supervisors and regulated professionals (financial and investment advisors, portfolio managers, insurance brokers and agents, supervisors and branch managers, planners). The goal of these programs is to help reduce litigation and regulatory risk and includes education and training on a range of liability, ethics and compliance issues.
Ellen was appointed to the OSC’s Seniors Expert Advisory Committee, and co-authored a paper entitled “Current Practices for Risk Profiling in Canada and Review of Global Best Practices” for the OSC’s Investor Advisory Panel. Ellen is also a member of the FSRA Consumer Advisory and is a director on the board of an RESP dealer.
Updated April 2024
