WEL Partners welcomes new associate Marian Passmore

Marian joined WEL Partners as an Associate Lawyer. Prior to joining WEL Partners, Marian worked for almost ten years in the not-for-profit sector advocating on behalf of financial consumers.

Previously at the Canadian Foundation for the Advancement of Investor Rights (“FAIR Canada”) as Director of Policy and COO, Marian is the co-researcher and co-author with Laura Tamblyn Watts of the 2017 joint Report on Vulnerable Investors: Elder Abuse, Financial Exploitation, Due Influence and Diminished Mental Capacity and a co-founder of Canada’s first Investor Protection Clinic at Osgoode Hall Law School. Marian has prepared numerous submissions to securities regulators and governments on behalf of financial consumers including areas such as the need and desirability of a statutory best interest standard for investment dealers and representatives in their dealings with financial consumers, improving the detection, prevention and response to senior financial abuse and investment fraud, and reforms to investor recovery and dispute resolution.

Marian articled and practiced litigation at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP from 1995 to 2000, and from 2000 to 2005 worked in-house at Ernst & Young LLP’s legal department as Legal Counsel where she had a litigation management role including defending professional negligence actions. She has appeared before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

Marian Passmore has participated as a panelist in several roundtables on behalf of retail investors and financial consumers including Northwind’s 2018 Retail Investor Forum’s Panel on Enforcement and Redress (October 28, 2018), the Portfolio Management Association of Canada’s Panel “Trusted Contact Persons and Powers of Attorney” (September 27, 2018), the Ontario Securities Commission’s Embedded Commissions Roundtables (September 18, 2017, June 7, 2013) and the Ontario Securities Commission’s Whistleblower Panel (June 9, 2015).