Jennifer Quaid

Jennifer Quaid is an Associate Professor and Vice-Dean Research in the Civil Law Section at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law. She is an internationally recognized leading legal expert and scholar in the fields of Organizational Criminal Liability, Corporate Accountability, Competition and Business Regulation.  She teaches criminal law, competition law and corporate law.

A member of the Bars of Québec, Ontario and New York, Prof. Quaid practised law for several years, first with the federal Department of Justice and then in private practice for a leading New York firm before joining the academy. She clerked for the Honourable Frank Iacobucci of the Supreme Court of Canada. 

Prof. Quaid is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). She is also a member of Transparency International Canada and sits on its legal committee. 

She was a member of the Board of Governors of the University from 2018-2021. 

The different facets of Professor Quaid’s scholarship are connected by a central question: when and how can law be used to stimulate good governance and ethical business practices, particularly in the prevention of serious and foreseeable harm caused by large organizations? Prof. Quaid's nimbleness in being able to apply her unique combination of areas of expertise to a wide range of pressing and novel issues has led her to being repeatedly sought after for research contributions and partnerships as well as commentary on current questions of public interest.

Professor Quaid actively researches and publishes on a range of topics that explore how the criminal law is applied to organizations. Her research program is centred on the unique enabling role that business organizations play in creating the conditions for serious blameworthy conduct to occur. This focus on the intersection of criminal law and business law is unusual and grounded in her original interdisciplinary approach, which combines perspectives drawn from law, philosophy, economics and organization studies. As a former practitioner with experience in corporate law and competition law, she offers a perspective that is infused with an appreciation for the particularities of how law is applied in real-world situations involving business organizations and their stakeholders. This perspective allows her to validate theoretical positions with empirical work. As a result, her research outputs stand as innovative contributions to often undertheorized and understudied areas of corporate criminal law.   

Organizational Sentencing 

Prof. Quaid's most recent work is focused on sentencing of organizational offenders. In 2020 she published an in-depth study of the effectiveness of the 2004 “Westray” reforms to organizational sentencing in Canada. Her current project focuses on how sentencing can be crafted to promote culture change and to foster meaningful consultation of stakeholders. She is also examining ways to better integrate victim concerns and interests in the sentencing process. 

Non-Trial Resolutions for Economic Crime, Anti-corruption Law

Prof. Quaid is keenly interested in issues related to anti-corruption enforcement, in particular the enactment of Canada's new remediation agreement regime (more commonly known as DPAs). She leading a 4-year funded comparative study of the use of non-trial resolution mechanisms in corruption matters that brings together researchers in Canada, France and Switzerland. In 2020, she leveraged her unique expertise to form an international partnership to study economic crime. She was also invited to join two other partnerships exploring issues of corruption and corporate accountability. 

Competition, Market Regulation and Digital Economy

Prof. Quaid is one of a small number of academics in Canada who has taught and written consistently about competition law. Her current research projects in this area explore how the emergence of digitally-driven markets, big data, pervasive surveillance and artificial intelligence should influence both competition law reform and broader approaches to economic regulation. Her recent chapter on “AI and Competition Law” in Artificial Intelligence and the Law in Canada (Toronto: LexisNexis Canada, 2021) is but one example of her contributions to this burgeoning area of interest. 

Areas of Research Interest (for partnership, collaboration and supervision purposes)

Organizational Criminal Liability
Economic Crime
Safety & Environmental Crimes
Sentencing & Non-trial resolutions
Competition & Antitrust
Digital Economy & Markets
Corporate Accountability 
Business Regulation & Regulatory Offences 
Organizational Behaviour
General Criminal Law & Sentencing
Corporate Law
Corporate Governance

• DRC 1707 - Droit pénal I (Criminal Law I)
• DRC 4594 - Droit de la concurrence (Competition Law)
• DRC 4777 - Thèmes choisis en droit pénal: Droit pénal des entreprises

• Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) (June 2017) – Criminal Law – Queen's University at Kingston
• Master of Laws (LL.M.) (May 1998) – Criminal Antitrust Law – Columbia University
• Master of Laws (LL.M.) (June 1996) – Corporate Criminal Liability – University of Cambridge
• Baccalaureate of Laws (LL.B.) (June 1994) – Common Law – University of Ottawa
• Licentiate in Law (LL.L.) magna cum laude (June 1993) – Civil Law – University of Ottawa
• Baccalaureate of Social Science (B.Soc.Sci - concentration in Economics) (October 1990) – Economics – University of Ottawa

• Jennifer A Quaid, The Limits of Legislation as a Tool of Reform: A Study of the Westray Reform to Organizational Sentencing, Revue juridique Thémis, Volume 54, Issue 1, 511-567 (December 2020)
• Jennifer Quaid & Mistrale Goudreau, Bref commentaire sur l’affaire Tervita de 2015, CPI, Volume 28, Issue 3, 703-720 (2016)
• Jennifer A. Quaid & Mistrale Goudreau, Cinq décisions en droit de la concurrence en 2013, CPI, Volume 26, Issue 2, 523-552 (2014)
• Jennifer A. Quaid, Making Sense of the Shift in Paradigm on Cartel Enforcement: The Case for Applying a Desert Perspective, McGill Law Journal, Volume 58, Issue 1, 149-198 (2012)

- De l'autre côté du miroir: L'IA et le rôle du droit de la concurrence dans la gouvernance numérique, Un droit de l'intelligence artificielle: entre règles sectorielles et régime général. Perspectives comparées, Page Range: 1-26, Larcier/Bruylant Belgium
Brussels, June 2022
Editors: Céline Castets-Renard & Jessica Eynard

- Steven Bittle & Jennifer Quaid, Captured or Complicit? SNC-Lavalin and the normalization of corruption in Canada, Regulatory-legislative-policy capture: rolling back corporate power, restoring public interest and democracy, Page Range: 142-159, Lorimer Canada
August 2021
Editors: Bruce Campbell

- Jennifer A. Quaid, AI and Competition Law, AI and the Law in Canada, Page Range: 151-180, Lexis-Nexis Canada Canada
Toronto, February 2021
Editors: T. Scassa & F. Martin-Bariteau

- Jennifer A Quaid, Balancing Risk and Reward in the Time of COVID-19: Bridging the Gap Between Public Interest and the “Best Interests of the Corporation”, The Law, Policy & Ethics of COVID- 19, Page Range: 233-245, University of Ottawa Press Canada
Ottawa, May 2020
Editors: Colleen M. Flood, Vanessa MacDonnell, Jane Philpott, Sophie Thériault & Sridhar Venkatapurum

- Jennifer A Quaid, At Cross Purposes: Abstract Individualism, Organizational Reality and the Criminal Law, Collectivity: Ontology, Ethics, and Social Justice, Page Range: 81-106, Rowman & Littlefield United States
Lanham, MD, 2018
Editors: Tracy Isaacs, Kendy Hess & Violetta Igneski

- Jennifer A Quaid, Negotiated Justice and Economic Crime: Lessons from the Canadian Experience, Criminalità d’impresa e giustizia negoziata: esperienze a confronto, Page Range: 123-163, Giuffrè Italy
Milano, 2017
Editors: Stefano Manacorda & Francesco Centonze

- Jennifer Quaid, What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander: Considering the Merits of a Presumption of Organizational Capacity in Canadian Criminal Law, Réformer le droit criminel au Canada: défis et possibilités/ Criminal Law Reform in Canada: Challenges and Possibilities, Page Range: 93-131, Les Éditions Yvon Blais Canada
Cowansville, 2017
Editors: Marie-Ève Sylvestre, Julie Desrosiers & Margarida Garcia

- Jennifer A. Quaid, Infractions relatives à la concurrence, Droit de la consommation et de la concurrence, Volume 6, Page Range: 102pp, LexisNexis Canada Canada
Montréal, 2015
Editors: S. Rousseau

- Jennifer A. Quaid, La responsabilité pénale des organisations, Droit pénal général, Page Range: 159pp, LexisNexis Canada Canada
Montréal, 2013
Editors: Roy, Simon & Robert, Marie-Pierre