Leading M&A lawyer Walied Soliman named Norton Rose Fulbright’s 2024 Global Chair

Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright today announced that leading M&A lawyer and Co-Chair of its special situations team Walied Soliman has been named its Global Chair for 2024. In this leadership role, Walied will serve as an ambassador of the firm with clients and colleagues across its 54 offices worldwide.

Walied was first elected Canada Chair in 2017 and previously served as the firm’s Global Chair in 2019.

"I am proud to serve once again as Norton Rose Fulbright's Global Chair. One of our firm's greatest strengths is our ability to support clients worldwide with their business needs and plans. We have a cohesive team that works on complex cross-border files, ensuring that our clients have seamless continuity of service and a trusted point of contact to depend on. My goal is to build on this success by further encouraging worldwide collaboration between offices and encouraging a culture of collegiality and cohesiveness amongst our more than 7,000 people worldwide. As Global Chair, I intend to continue to inspire inclusion, engagement and pride and to entrench Norton Rose Fulbright as a leading law firm and employer of choice globally,” said Walied Soliman, Global Chair.

Widely regarded as one of Canada’s foremost lawyers in special situations, he co-chairs the Canadian practice team ranked as the top company-side legal advisor in Canada in the 2023 Bloomberg Global Activism Review and League Tables and ninth globally for activist-side legal advisor.

Walied has helped clients through some of the most significant and complex M&A transactions and proxy battles in the country, advising buyers, sellers, boards, hostile bidders and shareholder activists. Indeed, Walied has been involved in almost every major proxy battle in Canada over the past several years, acting for either issuers or activists. His practice also covers restructurings, corporate finance, governance and structured products.

Walied brought experience and vision to his selection by the Government of Ontario to chair the Capital Markets Modernization Taskforce (2020), whose mandate was to conduct a full review of the capital markets regulatory regime. He was nominated King’s Counsel in Ontario in 2023.

A board member with Toronto Metropolitan University, the Toronto SickKids Hospital Foundation and the BlackNorth Initiative, whose mission is to end anti-Black systemic racism, Walied is a pillar of the community. The United Nations Association in Canada chose Walied as its Global Citizen Laureate for his professional merit and service to the community (2019).

The position of Global Chair rotates between regions annually. Walied will succeed Sydney partner Scott Atkins, who will continue as Australia Chair.