Successful leave application doesn’t foolproof against summary judgment
A seminal Ontario Superior Court decision leaves little doubt that success on an application for leave to appeal under the secondary market liability provisions of the Ontario Securities Act (OSA) does not portend success on the merits. “The statute clearly delineates between the ‘reasonable possibility’ standard for leave and the ‘balance of probabilities’ threshold on the merits,” […]
BARE BONES BRIEFS: Crown seeks juror challenge for transgender bias | Dismissed: first privacy class action heard on merits | Young lawyers suicidal | GC workload crisis: EY | PainWorth expands | Best law firm webinars
By Julius Melnitzer | April 8, 2021 Dismissed: first privacy class action heard on the merits Quebec Superior Court Justice Florence Lucas has dismissed the first class action regarding the loss of personal information that has been heard on the merits in Canada. Anne Merminod in Borden Ladner Gervais LLP’s office in Montreal, lead counsel […]
Ten key tips: pivoting to a mediation practice
April 7, 2021 | By Rafeena Bacchus, guest contributor In Part I of this series, I provided 10 tips by way of a general roadmap to pivoting a legal career. Here, I will expand on those tips in the context of embarking on a mediation practice. Know your skill set and determine your area of […]
BARE BONES BRIEFS: OCA boosts prisoners, Divisional Court boots disabled | Condo developers don’t have fiduciary duties | OCA forces OSC to disgorge dilatory transcripts | Best law firm bulletins
By Julius Melnitzer | April 5, 2021 Divisional Court: government has no duty to be competent In dismissing a class action by developmentally disabled adults seeking only what they were due under Ontario law, the Divisional Court confirmed what we already knew: the government of Ontario has no duty to administer its mandates competently. The […]
Cybersecurity: Nine tips to Mitigate legal and regulatory liability
April 2, 2021 | By Reciprocity Labs staff With technology’s numerous benefits come ever-increasing cybersecurity risks. As hackers devise innovative methods of infiltrating business systems, devastating cyber-attacks have become prevalent. Due diligence and compliance are more important than ever. To be sure, compliance is a challenge for some businesses, but one that fades in the […]
BARE BONES BRIEFS: U.K. leaves GDPR; Mortgage broker licensing requirements exemptions; Arbitration & the pandemic; EAPO launches pharmaceutical register
By Julius Melnitzer | March 16, 2021 U.K. abandons GDPR U.K. culture secretary Oliver Dowden says the country will strike its own data adequacy agreements with other countries. Although the U.K. has already secured such an agreement, still in draft, with the EU, it does not intend to “copy and paste” the EU’s rulebook, known […]
Top 10 business decisions of 2020 part two: From termination and tax to good-faith contracts
By Julius Melnitzer | March 12, 2020 This is the second of a two-part series listing the Top 10 Business Decisions in Canada for 2020. The first part dealt with cases ranked 6-10. This article ranks the top five in ascending order. 5. Waksdale v. Swegon North America Inc. 2020 ONCA 391 Ultimately, Waksdale stands for the proposition that […]
Ontario Superior Court: New twist on class action funding approvals
November 4, 2020 | By Julius Melnitzer Sooner or later, some enterprising lawyer was going to try it on: why not intervene in a funding application brought by counsel competing for carriage of a class action? The scene of the crime was litigation over Ukraine International Airlines (UIL) flight 752. Iran shot the flight down […]
The Case Doctor: a new legal species
October 19, 2020 | By Julius Melnitzer Richard Shekter of Shekter Legal, a Toronto mediator and arbitrator, has put an interesting twist on the notion of a “second opinion”. After 44 years as an all-purpose counsel with a reputation for taking on anything with merit that came through the door, he set up shop as […]
Counsel are judge’s “lens”: Ontario Court of Appeal
October 12, 2020 | By Julius Melnitzer Putting forward the evidence isn’t enough: argue your theory at trial if you want to complain on appeal about its treatment. That’s the message from the Ontario Court of Appeal’s recent decision in Becker v. Toronto (City). “The court made it pretty clear that if an issue isn’t […]