Davit D. Akman

He specializes in complex commercial litigation, including contract disputes, securities cases, oppression claims, proxy contests and other types of shareholder litigation. Davit has appeared before all levels of court in Canada and various administrative tribunals, including the Ontario Securities Commission, the Competition Tribunal and the Ontario Energy Board. He was counsel in the Supreme Court of Canada’s landmark commercial law case BCE v 1976 Debentureholders.

A significant portion of Davit's practice involves defending national and cross-border class actions. He recently appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada in Sun-Rype Products Ltd v Archer Daniels Midland, one of Canada's leading class action cases. He was also counsel for Rogers Communications Inc. in connection with numerous multi-billion dollar class actions across Canada to recover "system access fees" and "911 fees" charged to consumers by Canadian wireless service providers. These include some of the largest class actions in Canadian history.

Davit advises on all aspects of Canadian competition law, including cartel investigations and private actions, abuse of dominance and other reviewable matters. He has served as counsel in a number of Canada's most important competition cases, including the seminal abuse of dominance case.

In 2014, Davit was recognized in Benchmark Canada’s Definitive Guide to Canada’s Leading Litigation Firms & Attorneys as a “Future Star” in Commercial, Class Action and Competition/Antitrust Litigation. He was also recognized as a “Cross-border Litigation Lawyer to Watch” in the 2011 Lexpert® Guide to the Leading US/Canada Cross-border Litigation Lawyers in Canada. The year before, he was named by Lexpert® as one of the leading lawyers in Canada under 40.

Davit is the vice-chair of the Antitrust Committee of the ABA Business Law Section and a vice-chair of the Legislation & Competition Policy Committee of the CBA National Competition Law Section. He is also a member of the Securities Litigation Committee of the ABA Section of Litigation and of several committees of the ABA Sections of Intellectual Property Law and Antitrust Law.  Davit has published extensively, and regularly presents at conferences in the US and Canada.

He has taught trial advocacy at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, as well as at Osgoode Hall Law School.

Davit clerked at the Supreme Court of Canada for Justice Louise Arbour.