Canadian securities law consists of an enduring core of fundamental principles that are refined, and sometimes shrouded, by a complex and constantly evolving body of technical details. This third edition, written by Christopher Nicholls — one of Canada’s foremost corporate and securities law experts — provides a solid grounding in the core securities law principles and helps the reader navigate the complex labyrinth of modern securities regulation.

Securities Law surveys the essential building blocks of securities regulation: basic definitions, the public and exempt markets for securities, insider trading, continuous disclosure, enforcement, regulation of dealers and other securities industry professionals, and take-over and issuer bids. Discussion of these subjects is interwoven with thoughtful consideration of larger public policy issues. This book also explores the history of securities regulation and several recent topics, including, among others, the stalled initiatives aimed at trying to create a national cooperative capital market regulatory system in Canada; developments affecting dealers, including the recent consolidation of Canada’s two national securities industry self-regulatory organizations; the impact of the 2021 Capital Markets Modernization Taskforce Report; the changes introduced in Ontario by the Securities Commission Act, 2021; and the ongoing challenges posed by increasing shareholder activism and technological advances, including the regulatory challenges posed by cryptocurrencies and other digital assets.

Christopher C Nicholls holds the W Geoff Beattie Chair in Corporate Law at the Faculty of Law of Western University, where he was named a faculty scholar in 2013. He is a graduate of the University of Ottawa, Osgoode Hall Law School, and Harvard University. 

Professor Nicholls has been a Fulbright scholar and visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School, a Herbert Smith visitor at the University of Cambridge, a visiting scholar at Melbourne Law School, a visiting research scholar at the University of Tokyo, and the Falconbridge professor of commercial law at Osgoode Hall Law School. He has also been a visiting professor at the law faculties of the University of Toronto and Queen’s University.  

Before coming to Western University in 2006, Professor Nicholls was a member of the Dalhousie University Faculty of Law (now the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University) where he was the inaugural holder of the Purdy Crawford Chair in business law. Prior to beginning his career as an academic, he practiced corporate and securities law in Toronto and in Hamilton, Bermuda. 

He is currently the chair of the board of directors of the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada and a member of the editorial advisory board for the Canadian Business Law Journal. He has previously served as a member (commissioner) of the Nova Scotia Securities Commission; as associate editor and corporate finance specialist editor of the Canadian Business Law Journal; as a member of the editorial board of the Canadian Journal of Law and Technology; as a research fellow with the Filene Research Institute in Madison, Wisconsin; as head of research and policy, Capital Markets Institute, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto; and in 2015 as a member of the Business Law Agenda Expert Panel appointed by the Government of Ontario’s Ministry of Government and Consumer Services to provide recommendations for reform of Ontario’s corporate and commercial legislation. He has acted as an expert consultant to private law firms and government and regulatory agencies and has lectured to academic and professional audiences in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, South America, and Japan. He is the author of numerous articles on topics related to corporate law, securities regulation, corporate governance and finance, and the regulation of financial institutions. Professor Nicholls is the author or co-author of five other books, including Securities Law, 2d ed (Irwin Law, 2018).

Christopher C. Nicholls' profile page