Benjamin Zarnett

The plaintiffs sought judicial approval of two settlement agreements in class actions alleging price-fixing in the automotive parts industry.

The first settlement with T.Rad was for $1,167,452, and the second with S-Y Systems was for $50,000.

The court found both settlements to be fair, reasonable, and in the best interests of the class, noting they fell within a zone of reasonableness.

The settlements and requested legal fees were approved.

Indigenous peoples from Ecuador obtained a US$9.5 billion judgment against Chevron Corporation for environmental devastation caused by oil exploration.

After failing to enforce the judgment in the United States due to findings of fraud by the plaintiffs' counsel, they sought to enforce it in Ontario against Chevron Canada, a seventh-level subsidiary.

The motion judge dismissed the claim, finding that Chevron Canada's shares and assets were not exigible under the Execution Act and that the corporate veil should not be pierced.

The appellants appealed, arguing both that the Execution Act permitted seizure of Chevron Canada's assets and that the corporate veil should be pierced in the interests of justice.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on the merits but reduced the costs award, recognizing the litigation as public interest litigation.

The appellant, a vendor of undeveloped land, appealed a Superior Court judgment requiring it to pay $407,582 in development-related costs as a condition of obtaining a severance consent from the municipality.

The Agreement of Purchase and Sale contained a clause permitting the vendor to refuse onerous or unreasonable severance conditions.

The application judge decided the case on the basis of a zoning clause not raised by the parties, constituting a denial of procedural fairness.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding that requiring a non-developing vendor to pay development costs was unreasonable under the contract, and that the respondent purchaser bore the obligation to satisfy such conditions or terminate the agreement.

Indigenous Ecuadorian villagers obtained a US$9.5 billion judgment against Chevron Corporation in Ecuador for environmental pollution.

They sought to enforce the judgment in Ontario against Chevron Corporation and its seventh-level indirect subsidiary, Chevron Canada.

The motion judge granted an order requiring the plaintiffs to post security for costs of approximately $942,951 before the appeal could proceed.

The appellants moved to vary this order.

The Court of Appeal set aside the security for costs order, finding that the motion judge erred in principle by failing to conduct a holistic analysis of the justness of the order in all circumstances.

The court emphasized that security for costs orders must be just and should not be used as a litigation tactic to prevent cases from being heard on their merits.

The plaintiff, a Crown corporation, sought to replace its commercial lending software and entered into an agreement with the defendants based on representations that the defendants had an existing, mature 'out of the box' software product.

The implementation failed, and the plaintiff discovered the software did not actually exist but was still in development.

The plaintiff terminated the agreement and sued for fraudulent misrepresentation and breach of contract.

The court found that the defendants knowingly made false representations about the existence and capabilities of their software, which induced the plaintiff to enter the agreement and waste 15 months.

The court awarded the plaintiff over $44 million in damages for incremental costs and lost economic benefits caused by the delay, and dismissed the defendants' counterclaim for unpaid development charges.

Self-represented long-term disability beneficiaries sought leave to appeal a sanction order from the Superior Court of Justice in the Nortel Networks CCAA proceedings.

The applicants challenged their binding status under the 2009 Representation Order for Disabled Employees and the 2010 Employee Settlement Agreement.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the motion for leave to appeal, finding that the stringent test for leave in CCAA proceedings was not met.

The proposed appeal lacked merit, the applicants were bound by the settlement agreement, and further delays in the protracted litigation were to be avoided.

The court also rejected a late-filed notice of constitutional question challenging sections 6(1) and 11 of the CCAA.

Following a successful motion by the defendants to prevent the plaintiffs from using extra-jurisdictional procedures to acquire documents from non-parties, the defendants sought partial indemnity costs of $75,365.38.

The plaintiffs argued for reduced costs of $15,000, citing the novelty and public interest of the issue under section 31 of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992.

The court rejected the plaintiffs' argument, finding the issue was not legally novel in a way that justified denying costs and noting the plaintiffs' conduct was improper.

The court awarded the defendants their costs as claimed.

The Monitor brought a motion to sanction the Canadian Debtors' Plan of Compromise and Arrangement under the CCAA, which implemented a settlement allocating $7.3 billion in sale proceeds.

Two self-represented long-term disability (LTD) beneficiaries objected, arguing the Plan was unfair and violated sections 7 and 15 of the Charter by treating their claims pari passu with other unsecured creditors.

The court found the Plan fair and reasonable, noting it was approved by 99.7% of creditors.

The court dismissed the Charter arguments, holding that section 7 does not protect pure economic interests and that equal treatment of creditors in insolvency does not constitute discrimination under section 15.

The Plan was sanctioned.

The plaintiffs moved to add Chevron Canada Capital Company (CCCC) as a party defendant to their action seeking to enforce an Ecuadorian judgment against Chevron Corporation.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the proposed amendment was not legally tenable and disclosed no cause of action against CCCC, as the court had previously ruled that Chevron Canada's corporate veil could not be pierced.

Furthermore, the court found no basis for jurisdiction over CCCC, a Nova Scotia company with no assets or operations in Ontario, and noted that Rule 17.02(o) regarding necessary parties had been repealed.

The plaintiffs sought to enforce a US$9.5 billion Ecuadorian judgment against Chevron Corporation and its seventh-level indirect subsidiary, Chevron Canada Limited.

The defendants moved for summary judgment to dismiss the claim against Chevron Canada, arguing it was a separate legal entity not liable for the judgment.

The plaintiffs argued Chevron Canada's assets were exigible under the Execution Act or that the corporate veil should be pierced.

The court granted summary judgment dismissing the claim against Chevron Canada, finding the Execution Act does not override corporate separateness and there was no basis to pierce the corporate veil absent allegations of wrongdoing by the subsidiary.

The plaintiffs also moved to strike Chevron's statement of defence.

The court struck defences relating to retroactive legislation and international law, but permitted defences alleging the Ecuadorian judgment was procured by fraud, bribery, and a denial of natural justice to proceed to trial.

The defendants, Lubrizol Advanced Materials Canada, Inc. and Lubrizol Advanced Materials, Inc. (LZAM), sought leave to appeal a decision dismissing their motion for partial summary judgment.

The original motion concerned IPEX's claim to recover settlement funds paid in class actions related to defective Kitec Pipe, alleging breach of contract and contribution/indemnity from LZAM for supplying defective resin.

The court dismissed LZAM's motion for leave to appeal, finding no conflicting decisions, no good reason to doubt the correctness of the motions judge's decision, and no issues of public importance.

The plaintiff, IPEX Inc., settled numerous class actions related to its defective Kitec Pipe.

IPEX then sued its resin suppliers, AT Plastics Inc. and Lubrizol Advanced Materials Inc., for breach of contract and indemnity, seeking to recover the settlement amount.

The defendant suppliers brought motions for partial summary judgment, arguing that IPEX could not prove causation without individual claims data.

The court dismissed the defendants' motions, finding that IPEX could plausibly establish causation for its breach of contract claim without individual data, and that the tort claim should proceed to trial alongside the contract claim to avoid bifurcation and inconsistent findings.

The court also found that the reasonableness of the settlement and the assignment argument were not suitable for summary judgment.

The Court addressed three securities class action appeals on whether limitation periods for statutory secondary-market misrepresentation claims are suspended before leave is granted, and on related nunc pro tunc, special circumstances, leave-threshold, and certification issues.

The CIBC and IMAX appeals were dismissed, while the Celestica appeal was allowed.

The plaintiff brought a motion seeking to preclude the defendants from advancing certain grounds in a second summary judgment motion that largely repeated arguments previously rejected by another motions judge.

The defendants argued that a renewed motion was justified in light of the Supreme Court of Canada’s clarification of the summary judgment framework in Hryniak v. Mauldin.

The court held that Hryniak applies retroactively and does not permit parties to reopen prior summary judgment determinations where appeal routes have been exhausted.

The court also found that issue estoppel and abuse of process barred relitigation of the same issues, particularly where the alleged “new” evidence had been available at the time of the first motion.

The plaintiff’s motion was granted, limiting the scope of the defendants’ pending motion for summary judgment.

The applicants sought approval of a sale of substantially all of their assets to a newly incorporated entity owned by their first lien lenders pursuant to a credit bid, effectively wiping out the second lien lenders.

RBC, a first and second lien lender, opposed certain ancillary relief.

The court approved the sale transaction, finding the pre-filing sales process reasonable under the Soundair principles and s. 36(3) of the CCAA.

However, the court declined to grant a broad third-party release by the first lien lenders, refused to bind RBC to a shareholders' agreement, and dismissed RBC's motions for pre-filing interest, fees, and a share of a consent fee.

In a foreign judgment recognition and enforcement appeal, the Court held that an enforcing forum need not establish a real and substantial connection between itself and either the dispute or the judgment debtor.

The only jurisdictional prerequisite is that the foreign court issuing the judgment had proper jurisdiction under the real and substantial connection framework or traditional grounds.

The Court also held that traditional presence-based jurisdiction over a corporate defendant is established where the corporation carries on business in the province and is served there.

Questions about ultimate enforceability against related corporate entities were left for later procedural stages.

The plaintiffs sought leave under s. 138.8 of the Securities Act and certification under the Class Proceedings Act for a proposed securities class action.

The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants misrepresented the company's ability to maintain its dividend, causing shareholders and debenture-holders to sustain losses when the dividend was cut.

The court dismissed the leave motion, finding no reasonable possibility that the secondary market misrepresentation claims would succeed at trial, as the defendants' statements were based on a genuine belief in their growth strategy at the time.

The court also dismissed the certification motion, holding that a class proceeding was not the preferable procedure for the remaining common law negligent misrepresentation claims, which require individualized proof of reliance.

Various parties brought motions seeking reconsideration or clarification of a prior joint allocation decision determining the distribution of $7.3 billion in escrow among debtor estates in multinational insolvency proceedings.

The moving parties argued that aspects of the allocation methodology—including treatment of bond guarantee claims, certain asset sale proceeds, intercompany claims, tax claims, and settled claims—required amendment or clarification.

The court reiterated that reconsideration is an exceptional remedy and rejected most requests because the issues either had been addressed at trial or could have been raised earlier.

Limited clarification was granted regarding the treatment of bondholder claims against guarantors and recognition of certain court‑approved settled pre‑filing claims that had been paid.

Other requested clarifications or amendments were denied.

In CCAA proceedings arising from the liquidation of a multinational telecommunications company, bondholders claimed entitlement to post‑filing interest exceeding US$1.6 billion in addition to principal and pre‑filing interest of approximately US$4.092 billion.

The court considered whether the common law "interest stops rule" applies in CCAA proceedings, particularly in a liquidating CCAA context.

Applying insolvency principles of pari passu distribution and relying on Supreme Court guidance emphasizing the integrated nature of the CCAA and BIA regimes, the court held that post‑filing interest does not accrue against the insolvent estate.

The court rejected arguments that contractual entitlement to interest survives the filing or that distributions require a negotiated plan recognizing such interest.

Accordingly, crossover bondholders were limited to principal and pre‑petition interest claims.

Shareholders sought an order requiring the appointment of an auditor and the production of audited financial statements for certain fiscal years under the Ontario Business Corporations Act.

The applicants argued that a limitation period had not expired for the claim relating to audited financial statements for the 2011 fiscal year.

The court accepted that the limitation period for the 2011 claim had not expired but held that the application sought the appointment of an auditor rather than merely delivery of statements.

Because shareholders were aware by the statutory annual meeting deadlines that auditors had not been appointed, the limitation period for those claims began running in 2010 and 2011 and expired before the application was commenced in 2014.

The endorsement was revised only to clarify the limitation analysis, and the claims remained barred.