Most businesses don't need just one kind of lawyer. These guides cover incorporation, contracts, shareholder and founder agreements, IP, financing, disputes and the cross-border pieces of running a company across Canada and the United States.
An international business lawyer advises companies operating across borders on the legal layer of their cross-jurisdictional work — including contracts that span multiple legal systems, mergers and acquisitions involving foreign parties, intellectual property protection in multiple countries, corporate structuring to optimize tax and regulatory treatment, import and export compliance, foreign market entry, and disputes that span more than one jurisdiction. The role is part legal advisor, part strategic counsel, and part coordinator across local counsel in each relevant country.
Yes, and this is the core of our international business practice. Because Mayo Law is licensed in both Ontario and New York, US-Canada cross-border work happens inside one firm — corporate structuring, contracts, M&A, immigration coordination for relocated executives, tax planning coordination, and compliance programs across the two jurisdictions. Most clients come to us specifically because they want to avoid the duplicate-firm, two-time-zone coordination cost.
Establishing a US presence involves several layers: choosing the right entity type (typically a Delaware C-corp or LLC, sometimes a state-specific entity), state-of-registration analysis, EIN registration with the IRS, opening US bank accounts and payment infrastructure, structuring the parent-subsidiary relationship to optimize tax treatment (transfer pricing, treaty benefits, withholding), employment law compliance for US-based hires, immigration strategy for relocated executives, and ongoing corporate maintenance. Each layer has Canadian-side implications that should be planned together rather than sequentially.