Naizam Kanji

Naizam Kanji is General Counsel at the Ontario Securities Commission. The General Counsel’s Office is an advisory branch that provides in-house legal, policy, strategic, litigation and risk-management services to the OSC. It also oversees organizational integrity and ethical conduct.

Naizam has been with the Ontario Securities Commission since 2000 and previously held the positions of Director of the Mergers and Acquisitions Branch and Deputy Director of the Corporate Finance Branch and Head of Mergers & Acquisitions. Prior to joining the OSC, Naizam clerked with the Commercial List of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and was an associate in the insolvency and restructuring group at a leading Canadian law firm.

Naizam has been a frequent speaker on securities regulation at conferences and law schools in Canada and the United States. He has also written papers on regulatory aspects of mergers and acquisitions law. Naizam is an Adjunct Professor in securities law and securities litigation at the University of Toronto Law School and in the LLM (Securities Law) program at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University.

Naizam served as Special Advisor to the Chair of the OSC on Regulatory Burden Reduction and led the team responsible for the OSC’s burden reduction report issued in November 2019. Naizam was a member of the Expert Advisory Group to the Ontario Capital Markets Modernization Task Force.

Naizam has a LLB and a LLM (Securities Law) from Osgoode Hall Law School and was called to the Bar in 1998.