In a civil fraud action accompanied by a pending Mareva injunction motion and related criminal proceedings, certain defendants sought confidentiality or sealing orders over their proposed affidavit and cross-examination evidence on the basis of self-incrimination concerns.
The court held that, as statutorily compellable witnesses in the civil proceeding, they were already protected by the principle against self-incrimination and no further protective order was required.
The plaintiff's cross-motion for a confidentiality order to permit filing of redacted motion materials was also dismissed because the open court principle was not displaced under the sealing-order test.
The court further held that disclosure of personal information in the motion record fell within the PIPEDA exception for compliance with rules of court relating to the production of records.
