Westaway Corporate Law
Automatically compiled listing. Details may contain errors.1 lawyer · Waterloo Region
One of 54 law firms listed in Waterloo, and one of 28 handling Business & Corporate Law.
About Westaway Corporate Law
Westaway Corporate Law brings corporate and tax law together for businesses, from start-up to sale. Since legal advice has tax consequences and business doesn't stop at the Canadian border, the firm handles legal and tax planning as one, drawing on over twenty-five years of cross-border business work to give clients clear, complete answers.
Patrick Westaway has more than twenty-five years of experience, working as both a corporate and a tax lawyer to help businesses start up, grow and, in the end, sell. That career began in 1998 at Deloitte & Touche's Toronto office, structuring cross-border investments and enterprises for multinationals with tax in mind, and moved into law practice, including a stint at Lang Michener LLP (now McMillan LLP). In 2014 Patrick relocated to Waterloo, the hub of Canada's innovation and technology community.
Clients come from a wide range of industries: SaaS providers, biotech development and distribution, medical services, telecommunications, renewable technologies and animated feature film financing, among others. Many of them share international financing, ownership or operations, and that's where Patrick's cross-border tax expertise matters most.
Patrick holds a J.D. from Osgoode Hall Law School and has completed Parts I and II of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants' In-Depth Tax Course. Ria Westaway, the business manager, brings over two decades of business and leadership experience to the practice.
Practice areas
Business structures, acquisitions and sales
At the highest level, the forms of business association are corporations, partnerships and trusts. Westaway Corporate Law pairs specialised knowledge of each with more than twenty years of experience negotiating and closing their acquisition and sale.
Commercial contracts
Contract negotiation and drafting is where intentions get clarified, risks are anticipated, assets are protected (with particular weight on intellectual property) and value grows.
Tax structuring and reorganisations
Tax determines the underlying architecture of every business structure. A reorganisation can be as simple as moving capital assets into a corporation on a tax-deferred basis, introducing employee stock options, tailoring share capital for new investors or putting in an estate freeze that passes future growth to the next generation. It can also mean reorganising to stay clear of U.S. CFC and PFIC rules and similar regimes aimed at non-U.S. corporations.
Private equity
Alongside traditional private equity work such as private placements and shareholder agreements, Westaway Corporate Law offers many years of specialised experience with inbound cross-border financial and enterprise structuring. It advises on which private placement exemptions are available and on the matching corporate obligations under securities law, and when a valuation is needed it brings both relationships with dedicated business valuators and the experience to fit that valuation to the company's broader strategy.
How Westaway Corporate Law works
Corporations, partnerships, trusts and other business associations are how every enterprise and investment gets structured or restructured, and putting them to work takes expertise on both sides of what Westaway Corporate Law sees as an artificial and largely unhelpful split between legal and tax. Its formal training and long experience let it offer tax law as part of its corporate work, so the answers clients get are coherent and complete.
Contracts aren't pieces of stationery to be bought off the shelf. And however tangled a matter gets, the firm takes pride in turning complex questions into something simple and easy to understand.
Milestones & recognition
- From 2000 until the program ended in 2005, Patrick Westaway taught in the Business Taxation section of Ontario's Bar Admission Course.
- In 2009 Patrick Westaway was seconded as in-house counsel to Wind Mobile (now Freedom Mobile) during its start-up phase, negotiating all manner of agreements involved in launching a national telecom company.
- Patrick Westaway also holds a Certificate in Entertainment Law from Osgoode Hall.
In the community
- In November 2016 Patrick Westaway gave a talk titled "Tax & Trade: Cross-Border Business 101" to the International Law Practitioners of Waterloo Region.
- An October 2016 article on the firm's site argued that technology companies must lobby for change to get access to flow-through shares, a strategy the natural resources sector has had for a long time and renewable energy gained more recently.
- Two July 2023 articles look at why U.S. LLCs, which suit American taxpayers, can be a serious tax trap for Canadians, and at deferred payment on the sale of owner-managed businesses, an issue the piece takes on across corporate, tax and employment law at once.
- A February 2025 article drew on the way Canada's provinces have long barred interprovincial trade in alcohol to suggest contract production as a route around U.S. tariffs.
Lawyers 1
The neighbourhood
Westaway Corporate Law works from 14 Erb Street West, the Waterloo Insurance Building, which carries a Part IV heritage designation. Mutual Life bought the lot at the corner of Albert and Erb Streets in 1879 and put up a red brick building there. Four insurance companies have called it home over the years: Dominion Life took over in 1912 when Mutual Life moved out, staying until 1954, when Canada Health and Accident arrived. The building later served as the Waterloo Regional Police Service's Waterloo detachment, and the lion figures out front were added in the early 1900s.
In May 2017 Communitech opened its Data Hub at the same address, with CIBC, the City of Waterloo and Quantum Valley Investments as founding partners, and described it as Uptown Waterloo's new base for the region's data-driven tech community.
Frequently asked questions
- Why does Westaway Corporate Law stress cross-border tax when structuring investment in Waterloo tech companies?
- Most investment in Waterloo's tech community comes from the U.S., and especially from California. That money has to be structured around uniquely cross-border tax regimes as well as the usual domestic ones. For example, the foreign debt to equity ratio that comes out of structuring debt and equity interests may carry unintended tax costs for both the company and its investors, and the role of U.S. LLCs and Canadian ULCs needs attention too.
- Has Patrick Westaway worked on German-owned wind and solar projects in Canada?
- Yes. Patrick Westaway has handled many German-owned wind and solar projects in Canada, structuring their purchase, development and eventual sale.
- Do ESOP specialists bring employee stock option work to the firm?
- Yes. ESOP specialists rely on Westaway Corporate Law for advice and drafting on employee stock option plans, and the firm includes ESOP planning in its private equity structuring so that all interests, present and future, dovetail within the larger strategy.
- Has Patrick Westaway acted on film, VFX or virtual reality ventures?
- Yes. Patrick Westaway advised a China-based U.S. VFX studio on its due diligence for setting up a Canadian operation to work on a well-known blockbuster film franchise. Another matter covered the full corporate and tax side, plus entertainment and contract work, for structuring, financing and running businesses that produce and distribute virtual reality content, with operations in Australia, the U.S. and Canada.
- Has Patrick Westaway set up an investment fund that buys technology companies abroad?
- Yes. Patrick Westaway did all the corporate and tax work to structure, finance and set up a Canadian investment fund whose mandate is buying and managing technology companies in a range of foreign jurisdictions.
Where to find them
14 Erb Street West, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 1S7 · 226-606-6750
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Tax LawThis listing was generated by AI from public sources in October 2026. It may contain errors, and we can’t guarantee it’s accurate or complete. Before you rely on anything here, verify it on the firm’s own website. Verify licence status in the Law Society of Ontario directory ↗
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