David R. Wingfield

The moving parties sought leave to appeal an order dismissing their motion for an anti-suit injunction and staying their counterclaims in Ontario pending the resolution of parallel proceedings in Delaware and Illinois.

The court dismissed the motion for leave to appeal, finding no good reason to doubt the correctness of the motion judge's decision.

The motion judge correctly applied the Amchem test and concluded that the foreign forums were more appropriate, noting that the jurisdiction clause in the parties' agreement was not exclusive.

The moving parties brought a motion to quash the appeals of an order by Farley J. The Court of Appeal determined that the order in question was interlocutory, as it merely postponed the appellants' entitlement to proceed with their counterclaim in Ontario pending the completion of United States proceedings, rather than finally deciding any issue against them.

Consequently, the appeals were quashed.

The appellant appealed the motions judge's refusal to approve his proposal in bankruptcy.

The respondent, who became a creditor through the appellant's misappropriation of funds, opposed the proposal.

The other creditors were related to the appellant and assigned their debts to third parties after the Notice of Intention was filed, specifically to circumvent the voting restrictions in the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the motions judge reasonably concluded the assignments were made to circumvent the Act.

In a winding-up of a charitable corporation facing extensive institutional abuse claims, the liquidator sought appellate clarification on whether assets allegedly held on special purpose charitable trusts were shielded from tort creditors whose claims arose elsewhere within the charity’s operations.

The court held that Canadian law recognizes no charitable immunity from tort liability and rejects any trust-fund theory that would immunize charitable assets from execution.

In the winding-up context, all assets of the charitable corporation, whether beneficially owned or held on trust for charitable purposes, were available to satisfy legitimate tort claims.

The court also struck out a paragraph of the order suggesting it was not intended to affect related British Columbia proceedings, while confirming that the British Columbia court remained free to make its own factual findings on ownership issues.