Margaret Kim

Margaret Kim is counsel in Gowling WLG’s Toronto office and a member of the firm’s Regulatory Services Group, practising at the intersection of international trade and strategic counsel on investment, competition, and cross-border regulatory matters. With experience spanning government and private practice, she brings a practical understanding of how trade and regulatory policy is developed and applied – and helps Canadian and multinational clients use that insight to navigate complex cross-border challenges. 

Margaret’s international trade and investment practice is both advisory and dispute-oriented. Her work spans WTO and treaty compliance, trade negotiations, trade remedies (anti-dumping, countervailing duties, and safeguards), investor-state and state-to-state dispute settlement, customs and tariff classification, economic sanctions and export controls, government procurement, forced labour and supply chain compliance, and trade-related risk allocation in commercial transactions, financing arrangements, and government funding programs.

Margaret also advises in relation to trade and foreign investment in strategic sectors of the Canadian economy with particular depth  in sectors including energy and critical minerals, steel and aluminum, automotive and advanced manufacturing, and telecommunications.

Before joining Gowling WLG, Margaret served as Trade Counsel to the Province of Ontario (including Invest Ontario), where she advised government and agency officials on trade and investment treaty matters, contributed to international trade agreement negotiations through federal-provincial consultations, and supported Ontario’s response to U.S. tariff and trade enforcement actions. She also worked on trade agreement compliance and dispute settlement, trade remedy proceedings, and strategic investment initiatives. In addition, she served as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General of Ontario, providing strategic legal and policy advice to the Ministry of the Attorney General. That experience gives her distinctive insight into the interplay between trade, investment, and government policy, particularly in the context of Canada-U.S. trade relations.

Margaret previously practised at leading Canadian law firms and served as a Short-Term Consultant with the World Bank Group’s Legal Vice Presidency. She sits on the Board of Trustees of Trinity College at the University of Toronto and on the National Board of the Korean Canadian Lawyers Association, and has taught International Trade Law as an Adjunct Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. She is fluent in Korean.