Law360 Canada (July 27, 2017, 1:42 PM EDT) -- Appeal by the Attorney General of Quebec from a judgment of the Quebec Court of Appeal affirming a decision allowing the respondent’s application for judicial review of a decision of the council of arbitration. The appeal concerned the reasonableness of an arbitration award made in the context of a specialized collective bargaining scheme, namely the scheme for medical specialists and the government of Quebec under the Health Insurance Act (Act). The award dealt with the very concept of a dispute and with standing to submit such a dispute to a council of arbitration under the Act and the Accord cadre entre le ministre de la Santé et des Services sociaux et la Fédération des médecins spécialistes du Québec aux fins de l’application de la Loi sur l’assurance maladie (Framework Agreement). The respondent, Guérin, was a radiologist. He wished to contest by way of arbitration a joint decision of the Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux (Ministère) and the Fédération des médecins spécialistes du Québec (Fédération) (collectively, “negotiating parties”) to refuse to declare that the laboratories he represented were eligible to receive a digitization fee for the years 2009 through 2011. The council of arbitration decided that Guérin’s objection could not give rise to an arbitrable dispute under the Act and the Framework Agreement and that, in any event, only the Fédération would have had standing to submit such a dispute. Further to a motion for judicial review, the Superior Court and the majority of the Court of Appeal both found that the council’s decision was unreasonable, concluding that it was open to Guérin under the Act to submit his dispute to the council of arbitration....