Martin is a seasoned international business lawyer with over twenty years of experience in structuring domestic and cross-border transactions, including purchases and sales of businesses, joint ventures, corporate partnering and loan transactions. Furthermore, he regularly advises Canadians doing business overseas and foreign clients doing business in Canada. Given his broad knowledge of foreign legal systems, he is called upon to assist in sorting out a wide panoply of situations with an extra-territorial element.

Martin is a former partner of Gowlings WLG, one of Canada’s premier and biggest law firms. Prior to entering private practice, Martin also held positions at the Supreme Court of Canada, the Correctional Service of Canada and as head of the legal department of MD Management, the financial services division of the Canadian Medical Association. Martin was based in Geneva, Switzerland, serving as legal adviser to the Global Fund, an international financing organization that has approved funding of over $23 billion to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in 151 countries.

Martin combines his strong technical skills in virtually all areas of the law that are likely to be encountered by a foreign business wanting to establish a presence in Canada (corporate set-up, privacy, regulatory, capital markets, contracts, secured lending, tax, employment matters) with first-hand leadership experience to deliver value to his clients. Martin’s pragmatism and experience make him well suited to be the general counsel for your Canadian operations.

Martin’s broad professional experience with international business law includes negotiating tax exemptions with the Ministry of Finance of an African country for domestic recipients of international funding and successfully mediating enforcing foreign judgments against Canadian assets. Examples of successful mandates include structuring and taking public the first publicly-traded mortgage investment corporation in Canada and advising a foreign factoring company on setting up its Canadian operations.

Martin is fluent or conversant in several languages. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce, degrees in common law and civil law, and a Master of Private International Law from a European University.