Overview
Dany Assaf is co-chair of the firm's Competition and Foreign Investment Review Practice. Dany's practice focuses on advising international and domestic clients on all aspects of competition law and foreign investment matters including in the area of national security reviews.
He acts for Canadian and international clients, advising on all aspects of competition law and foreign investment matters under the Investment Canada Act and has been involved in many of Canada’s highest profile transactions, investigations and reviews over his career including the DuPont/Dow merger, the Supreme Court of Canada Tervita efficiencies case, the Interac case (Canadian bank payments system), GE/Honeywell and Rio Tinto/Alcan. Dany has been recognized as a leading expert in the areas of competition law and foreign investment law, including being named as one of the world’s "Top 40 Competition Lawyers Under 40" by Global Competition Review in 2008 as well as one of Canada’s "Top 40 Lawyers Under 40" by Lexpert magazine in 2006. Dany was also nominated as Dealmaker of the Year by Global Competition Review in 2015.
In addition to his practice, Dany has been an adjunct professor of law at the University of Western Ontario and has written and presented extensively on competition and foreign investment topics, including in leading newspapers, publications and co-authoring Competition and Antitrust Law: Canada and The United States (4th edition) for LexisNexis Butterworths (2014), which was recently cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in a leading competition case (a case he also advised on). Dany also authored a leading foreign investment study - Foreign Direct Investment and the National Interest: A Way Forward, Institute for Research on Public Policy, no. 40, April 2013. Dany also served as an associate editor of the American Bar Association’s Antitrust Magazine. Dany has also provided testimony on proposed amendments to the Competition Act before the Standing Committee of the Canadian Senate on Banking, Trade and Commerce and on the Investment Canada Act to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.
Dany also has a Middle East advisory practice, advising clients in both the private and the public sectors on Middle East investment and capital market matters. He is also a co-founder and instructor of the inaugural Islamic Finance course as part of the Executive Programs at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and published on a variety of related topics.
Dany is a past president and a member of the board of the Canadian Club of Toronto. He is a fellow of the College of Fellows of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He is also involved in a variety of social, cultural and charitable initiatives, including recently the City of Toronto’s Canada 150 External Advisory Committee. Dany speaks both English and Arabic fluently.