Ephraim Stulberg

The tenant, a duty-free store operator at the Peace Bridge, brought a cross-motion seeking a declaration that it was not required to pay base rent during the 18-month period its store was closed due to COVID-19 border restrictions.

The tenant argued the landlord breached a lease provision requiring consultation on regulatory changes and breached its duty of good faith by making unreasonable demands.

The court dismissed the motion, finding the landlord engaged in good faith negotiations and offered reasonable accommodations.

The court held it cannot rewrite the lease or impose a new rent structure where the parties failed to reach an agreement, as the lease lacked objective benchmarks for such an adjustment.

The plaintiff in a passing off action brought a motion for further production of the defendant's documents, including financial statements, tax returns, sales records, and website traffic data, to assist its expert in calculating damages.

The court granted the motion in part, ordering the production of the defendant's financial statements and general ledgers, subject to redactions for relevance and commercial sensitivity.

The court denied the requests for tax returns, monthly sales totals, salary details, sales forecasts, and website traffic data, finding that the plaintiff failed to establish their relevance or existence.

The court also granted the plaintiff leave to amend its statement of claim and extended the time to set the action down for trial.

The plaintiffs and the defendant Robert Langlois entered into a joint venture to operate a powder-coating business, ACS.

Mr. Langlois licensed his powder-coating know-how and expertise to ACS.

Before ACS generated any revenue, Mr. Langlois secretly formed a competing business, PCS, with the defendants Jeffrey Sugar and Gary Sugar.

Mr. Langlois diverted corporate opportunities, including a lucrative powder-coating contract, to PCS and later to VML.

The plaintiffs sued for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and knowing assistance.

The court found that Mr. Langlois breached the Licence Agreement and his fiduciary duties by misappropriating corporate opportunities.

The court also found that Jeffrey Sugar and Gary Sugar knowingly assisted in these breaches.

The court ordered disgorgement of profits and repayment of loans and expenses, holding the defendants jointly and severally liable.