By Julius Melnitzer | October 30, 2024
ECJ RULES THAT PRIVILEGE DOES NOT EXTEND TO TAX ADVISORS WHO ARE NOT LAWYERS
The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that privilege in tax matters extends only to lawyers and not to other professionals, even if they perform similar advisory tasks. The court concluded that EU reporting obligations related to tax matters were a justified and proportionate interference with the right to privacy given the EU’s general interest in combatting aggressive tax planning and preventing tax avoidance and evasion.
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ALEXI LAUNCHES EXPANDED LITIGATION STREAMLINING TOOL
Alexi, a leading AI litigation platform, has launched a significantly expanded product that applies advanced proprietary AI technology to core legal competences, and which the developer claims will reduce time spent on routine litigation tasks by 80%. “We’ve focused on building AI that empowers lawyers by streamlining time-draining processes like document analysis, legal research, and data extraction,” says Alexi CEO Mark Doble. “But AI’s impact on workflows goes beyond speeding things up to making legal services more accessible and responsive to clients.”
Key features of the new product include: context-aware case management; comprehensive document analysis and summary; a document management hub; an AI conversational assistant; and an extensible platform that by sometime in 2025 provide full coverage of litigation workflow, including comprehensive capabilities for generating court-ready pleadings.
AI, Doble says, has dramatically changed lawyer’s histoically slow approach to legal tech adoption, because – unlike previous products, which provided relatively limited value to the profession – AI provides lawyers with a competitive edge. “With AI tools, lawyers can extract insights from data that they might otherwise overlook,” he explains. “In Alexi, for example, we’ve harnessed predictive analytics that aren’t just time-savers—they offer insights that can drive the case strategy itself, helping litigators get a clearer sense of what’s to come.”
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LEGAL RISK ASSESSMENTS: AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME?
Legal issues, says Ralph Cuervo-Laurens, a dispute resolution, regulatory compliance and environmental law partner in McMillan LLP’s Toronto office, more often than not have as their source a host of controllable internal circumstances outlined in his firm’s client bulletin entitled Legal Risk Assessments- An Essential Risk Management Tool. Unfortuantely, many companies’ approach to legal issue problem-solving is a piecemeal one. A preferable approach, Cuervo-Laurens maintains, is a legal risk assessment, which McMillan defines as “akin to a financial or tax audit but with a focus on the legal risks inherent in virtually every aspect of every business”. LRAs are “objective and agnostic, not driven by any particular outcome, timeline, or end goal”, they “mirror the kind of top-to-botton due diligence undertaken in the context of M&A transactions but as a regular aspect of everyday risk management”, and “ought to be an essential part of every organization’s risk management approach writ-large, regardless of size, type or structure.”
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OCA HIGHLIGHTS NEED FOR “APPOINTING AUTHORITY” IN ARBITRATION AGREEMENTS
The Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled that the appointment of arbitrators by a court under the Arbitration Act cannot be challenged on appeal. “The decision also demonstrates why parties entering ad hoc arbitration agreements should include an ‘appointing authority’ as the default for choosing their arbitrator if they can’t agree on one,” says Barry Leon, a member arbitrator and mediator at Toronto’s Arbitration Place, a former litigator at Torys LLP and previously a judge of the commercial division of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court. Currently, Arbitration Place in Toronto acts as an appointing authority when approached to do so, and the ADR Institute of Canada will soon release new rules promoting itself as such an authority.
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SINGAPORE CONTINUES PUSH TO BE INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES RESOLUTION CENTRE
The Singapore Parliament has introduced a bill to create an International Committee within the Singapore International Court. The IC will handle civil appeals from certain foregin jurisdictions, a move that will expand the SICC’s jurisdiction by creating a forum for cross-border appeals. “This is just another part of Singapore’s ongoing efforts to collaborate internationally on legal malters,” says Barry Leon, a member arbitrator and mediator at Toronto’s Arbitration Place, a former litigator at Torys LLP and previously a judge of the commercial division of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court. “In a similar way, the Singapore International Arbitration Centre is marketing in India, which is a major source of its arbitrations, and elsewhere in Asia. SIAC also has a North American office in New York. Singapore is working hard to become a major restructuring centre as well.”
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Julius Melnitzer is a Toronto-based legal affairs writer, ghostwriter, writing coach and media trainer. Readers can reach him at [email protected] or https://legalwriter.net/contact.