Benjamin Matthew Bathgate

Benjamin M. Bathgate is the Chair of the Commercial Litigation Practice Group and Co-Chair of the Blockchain and Digital Assets Practice Group at WeirFoulds LLP. His practice focuses on complex, high stakes fraud, digital asset recovery and cross-border litigation and investigations. Ben is widely recognized in the crypto industry as the go-to digital asset investigations and recovery lawyer in Canada. Ben is top ranked (Band 1) in the Chambers FinTech Guide “Crypto-Asset Disputes – Canada” category.

Clients have lauded Ben as “very well versed in the crypto world” and “one of the most knowledgeable and experienced lawyers in this area globally.”

Ben has significant expertise in and regularly advises on matters relating to commercial fraud, injunctions, asset tracing and recovery, internal and government investigations (cross-border and national) and white collar prosecutions. He has been lead counsel in a number of precedent-setting cases, including cross-border digital asset tracing and seizure proceedings. Ben successfully obtained the first reported Anton Piller Order (Civil Search and Seizure) on cryptocurrency in Canada, a case that was the feature story in Bloomberg Businessweek (May 19, 2022). He speaks and consults regularly on cryptocurrency frauds and asset tracing as part of his cross-border practice, and has interviewed with leading publications in the field including CBC Television , Globe and Mail , CoinDesk , CoinDesk TV, Canadian Lawyer, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg Business .

Ben is a leading corporate commercial litigator who has built a far-reaching cross-border practice and network, including foreign lawyer contacts, investigators, local and international law enforcement contacts, litigation funders, forensic experts, custodians/monitors and other specialized service providers. Ben’s sophisticated cross-border fraud practice has also helped him develop an expertise in and a network to support investigations of off-shore monetary and digital asset transactions including those implicated in money laundering, sanctions violations and corruption. He prides himself on building cross-disciplinary teams that provide practical, multi-jurisdictional solutions for business challenges facing a diverse global client base. These foreign and domestic companies include: banking and financial services institutions; exchanges; MSBs; inve