Michael "Mike" Wagner

Mike has been a litigator and dispute resolution lawyer for over 20 years. He has been repeatedly recognized as a leading lawyer and litigation star by peer ranking services including Benchmark, Best Lawyers in Canada, and Lexpert. In 2018 he became a member of the Litigation Counsel of America, an invitation only fellowship of highly experienced lawyers across North America. Mike is a member of the firm’s Strategic Committee.

For years Mike has lectured on professionalism and ethics in the Inns of Court program for junior barristers. Mike also chairs the Air & Space Law section of the Canadian Bar Association – BC, supporting Farris’s aviation and transportation law clients.

Mike’s litigation practice has four major components: company and shareholder litigation, private wealth disputes, class actions, and government / constitutional / environmental litigation.

Mike’s company litigation practice deals with internal deadlock and dysfunction among shareholders and management, as well as external disputes between companies and outsiders. His cases have involved disputed assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars, engaging complex legal and factual issues including corporate, shareholder, governance, trust, fiduciary, executive employment, valuation and tax.

Mike’s class action practice spans issues in contract, misrepresentation, negligence, product liability, business practices and consumer protection. Unlike most class action litigators, Mike does not confine his practice to just the plaintiff side or the defence side. Instead, Mike is equally comfortable and effective at acting for clients who find themselves on either side of a class action litigation matter.

Mike’s government, constitutional and environmental litigation practice includes representing various levels of government, and also at times acting for private parties. These cases have involved issues in contract, tort, land use, mining, environmental (contaminated sites and waste management), class action, and constitutional (Charter of Rights) matters.

Mike’s private wealth litigation practice includes dealing with disputes and discord within multigenerational families, and handling complex estates matters arising after the head of a family has passed away. Mike is counsel to the court-appointed Administrators of the Estate of Gang Yuan – which is British Columbia’s most notorious and high profile estates matter in recent memory.

Mike is adept at handling all manner of complex cases including the examples referred to above, and driving those cases forward to a conclusion.

Not all problems can await a trial. Because of that, Mike is also capable of moving quickly and decisively to protect his clients’ interest on an urgent basis, when the circumstances require. His skill set includes Mareva (asset freezing) Anton Piller (civil search warrant), and Norwich Pharmacal (third party disclosure) applications. He is also experienced with interlocutory injunctions, publication bans, and sealing orders, which often arise in the course of high stakes corporate litigation, intellectual property disputes and in employment litigation.