Warren Cass

About Warren Cass

Companies raising capital, listing their shares or buying and selling businesses are the core of Warren Cass's practice as a partner in Gowling WLG's Toronto office. Clients have come from mining and mineral exploration, technology, fintech, and pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, and Cass has also acted for investment dealers. Going-public transactions on the TSX, the TSX Venture Exchange and the Canadian Securities Exchange are a regular part of the work, and so is what follows a listing: continuous disclosure, governance and stock exchange compliance.

Cass earned an honours BA in political science at McGill and a JD at the University of Toronto, then was called to the Ontario bar in 2013 and to the New York bar a year later. Cass was lead associate when Mogo acquired 39 percent of Coinsquare, working within a seven-person Gowling team on a deal that a fellow partner called more complicated than a typical M&A file.

Cass has sought out securities work that poses novel challenges, and cryptocurrency is one example. Cass helps businesses make sense of the rules that govern the industry and believes in crypto's potential while caring about protecting investors from fraud and the public from crime. The Logic has turned to Cass for comment on the regulatory challenges startups face in the investment space.

A Toronto native, Cass gives time to the city's arts community as chair of Artscape Non-Profit Homes Inc. and ANPHI Affordable Homes Inc. Inside the firm, Cass founded OpenHouse Canada, Gowling WLG's Canadian 2SLGBTQ+ affinity network, and chairs it today. Cass is fascinated by the way people set the rules and compromises that let a community work as more than the sum of its parts.