Canada’s ratification of the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of other States (the “Convention”) has been a long time coming. Since signing the Convention in 2006 and passing implementing legislation in 2008 that has yet to come into force, Canada has made no further progress towards ensuring that the International [...]

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In a recent B.C. Court of Appeal decision,[1] a British Columbia lawyer has successfully challenged the constitutional validity of the non-disclosure and confidentiality provisions found in the investigative powers given the B.C. Securities Commission under the B.C. Securities Act, s.148(1),as a breach of his freedom of expression under section 2 of the Charter.  Section 148(1), [...]

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“Clarifications” from Canadian Lobbying Commissioner may prevent lobbyists from being members of political parties. On August 23, 2010, the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada Karen Shepherd issued “clarifications” on when political activities by lobbyists create a conflict of interest. Unfortunately, these clarifications lack specifics and the Commissioner’s restrictions on political activities by lobbyists remain too broad. Indeed, they may bar some lobbyists from joining political parties.

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Courts in two Canadian cases have recently made it easier to certify direct and indirect-purchaser class actions seeking damages for alleged price fixing. Formerly, the difficulty of proving damages suffered by indirect purchasers on a class-wide basis was a major impediment to certifying such actions. The two decisions, DRAM (Pro-Sys Consultants Ltd. v. Infineon Technologies [...]

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In two recent decisions, the Ontario Superior Court and the British Columbia Court of Appeal relied on the aggregate damages provisions of the Class Proceedings Act in their respective provinces to certify class actions seeking damages for alleged conspiracies to fix prices for hydrogen peroxide and DRAM memory chips. In doing this, both courts side-stepped the requirement in the aggregate damages provisions that liability must be proved before damages can be assessed in the aggregate. A close examination of the decisions suggests, however, that the courts have in effect done away with this statutory requirement.

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