Insurance
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August 13, 2024
Court affirms denial of $125M professional liability claim by law firm due to late reporting
The Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled that certain professional liability insurers are not required to cover a $125 million claim because the insured law firm failed to report it within the policy period.
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August 09, 2024
Canada sanctions Belarusian judges complicit in Lukashenko regime’s jailing of political prisoners
Canada and its allies have imposed asset freezes and immigration bans on certain Belarusian judges and others who facilitate repression and violations of human rights in their country, including jailing hundreds of political prisoners at the behest of President Alexander Lukashenko’s illegitimate regime.
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August 06, 2024
Ontario Court approves $12M settlement in GM ignition switch defect class action
The Ontario Superior Court has approved a $12 million settlement of a class action concerning allegations that General Motors was aware of an automobile ignition switch defect in certain vehicles it had sold as much as 12 years before it began recalling affected vehicles.
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July 31, 2024
AMPs for securities fraud can be debts released by bankruptcy discharge: SCC
Settling conflicting appellate case law over whether the exemption in s. 178(1)(e) of the federal Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act enables administrative money penalties (AMPs) and disgorgement orders imposed by a provincial securities regulator to survive a bankruptcy discharge, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 5-2 that $13.5 million in AMPs imposed by the BC Securities Commission on two undischarged bankrupts for fraudulent securities activity is a debt that can be released by a future discharge in bankruptcy. But it ruled unanimously in addition that approximately $5.6 million in related disgorgement orders would survive any discharge from bankruptcy the pair might obtain in future.
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July 31, 2024
Court denies stay for non-disclosure of partial settlement, citing fundamentally distinct claims
The Ontario Court of Appeal has declined to stay an action concerning a faulty piping system in a disinfection facility against certain parties, rejecting the argument that the plaintiff had engaged in an abuse of process by not immediately disclosing a settlement with certain defendants.
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July 30, 2024
Counsel contend Ottawa’s spate of judicial appointments might make novel constitutional appeal moot
Lawyers who won a groundbreaking Federal Court declaration that recognized a “constitutional convention that judicial vacancies on the provincial superior courts and federal courts must be filled within a reasonable time” contend Ottawa’s appeal should be dismissed as moot if the Trudeau government gets federal judicial vacancies down to the reasonable level set by Federal Court Justice Henry Brown last February.
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July 26, 2024
SCC’s 9-0 judgment on interpreting historic treaties a big win for First Nations, their counsel say
Live up to the honour of the Crown and its “sacred” treaty promises — or the courts will step in. That might sum up the message from the Supreme Court of Canada to the defendant governments of Ontario and Canada in a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit by Anishinaabe First Nations, who ceded by treaty 174 years ago a huge swath of their traditional Northern Ontario territories only to have successive federal and provincial governments “dishonourably” flout that treaty by barely compensating the cash-strapped Indigenous communities while the Crown and big business reaped billions over the decades from the mineral, timber and other resources of the ceded lands.
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July 26, 2024
Court of Appeal orders retrial in car accident case against Insurance Corporation of B.C.
The B.C. Court of Appeal has allowed an appeal of a decision dismissing a damages claim for a motor vehicle accident, finding that the judge did not consider relevant evidence that may have changed the analysis.
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July 25, 2024
Court of Appeal upholds insurer liability for fire damage, rejecting coverage exclusion amendments
The Ontario Court of Appeal has upheld a finding that an insurer was liable to pay for losses caused by a fire in a vacant building as it was estopped from relying on a vacancy exclusion or policy amendments that excluded losses due to malicious acts.
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July 24, 2024
New managing partner for Aird & Berlis
Jill P. Fraser, a senior partner in Aird & Berlis’s financial services group and a long-standing member of the executive committee, the firm’s new managing partner.