The plaintiff, Oz Merchandising Inc., brought a motion to amend its Statement of Claim for the eighth time, seeking to introduce new allegations of vicarious liability against the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) and Ontario Soccer Association (OSA) for the acts of the defunct Canadian Professional Soccer League (CPSL), and to increase a claim for lost player transfer fees from $100,000 to $42 million.
The CSA vigorously opposed the amendments.
The court dismissed the motion, finding that the proposed amendments would cause irreparable prejudice to the defendants due to the late stage of the 14-year-old proceeding, were largely statute-barred, involved a novel and insufficiently pleaded duty of care, and introduced untenable collateral issues related to match-fixing.
Minor grammatical edits to the existing pleading were permitted, but the substantive changes to the monetary claims and named players were disallowed.
