Groia & Company

About Groia & Company

Groia & Company is a small firm concentrated in securities litigation, based at 365 Bay Street in Toronto's Financial District. Joseph Groia founded the firm on January 1, 2000, after a career built around securities regulation. Groia was called to the Ontario Bar in 1981 and holds a BA and a JD from the University of Toronto. Groia joined the Ontario Securities Commission in 1985 as associate general counsel overseeing litigation, served as the OSC's Director of Enforcement from 1987 to 1990, and then spent the 1990s as a partner at Heenan Blaikie practicing corporate and securities litigation before starting the firm.

The firm today has grown to a team of eight lawyers led by five principals, and its practice centres on securities regulatory defence, securities class actions, white collar criminal defence, and shareholder or corporate governance disputes, along with corporate commercial, employment, and real estate litigation. It represents clients in proceedings brought by provincial securities commissions, IIROC, the MFDA, and the SEC. In 2007 Groia co-authored, with Pamela Hardie, what the firm describes as Canada's first textbook on securities litigation, and a second edition followed in 2012. One of the firm's partners came to law after an engineering degree from McGill, a background that predates a securities and corporate litigation practice at the firm since 2000.