Gregory S. Tzemenakis

Following a prior summary judgment establishing liability for copyright infringement, the court conducted an uncontested assessment of damages.

The defendant operated a language training service that collected confidential federal public service language test questions from students and used them to train others, thereby infringing Crown copyright and undermining the integrity of the testing system.

The plaintiff elected statutory damages under s. 38.1 of the Copyright Act and sought the statutory maximum for six compromised tests plus punitive damages.

The court considered the defendant’s bad faith, deterrence objectives, and lack of evidence regarding profits.

Statutory damages were awarded at varying levels per infringement but punitive damages were declined.

The plaintiffs, a joint venture, sued the Attorney General of Canada for damages arising from a flawed government procurement process for relocation services.

The plaintiffs alleged that the Crown breached its implied contractual duty of fair and equal treatment by designing the Request for Proposals to favour the incumbent contractor, Royal LePage Relocation Services.

The court found that the Crown acted in bad faith, intentionally concealed preferences in the tender documents, and allowed the incumbent to submit a non-compliant bid regarding property management services.

The court declared the plaintiffs the successful tendering party and awarded them $29,166,507 in damages for lost profits.

A claim for punitive damages was dismissed.

During a lengthy civil trial concerning federal relocation service contracts, the plaintiffs brought a motion to vary an earlier production order that had refused disclosure of a competitor’s administration fees.

After hearing extensive trial evidence, the court concluded that the administration fees were relevant to both liability and damages, particularly in understanding the effect of a zero‑percent bid for property management services.

Newly discovered facts showed that the defendant’s expert had requested and used the fees in internal analyses despite earlier representations suggesting otherwise.

Applying Rule 59.06(2)(a) of the Rules of Civil Procedure, the court held that orders may be varied where new facts arise or are discovered that would have materially affected the earlier decision.

The court therefore ordered limited disclosure of the administration fees and related reconciliation documents.

The plaintiffs sought a ruling confirming the admissibility of documents produced pursuant to a prior court order in litigation concerning federal relocation services procurement processes.

The defendant argued that the documents constituted hearsay, lacked authenticity, and were irrelevant to the fairness of the procurement process.

The court rejected these objections, finding the documents relevant to issues including alleged bias or preferential treatment in favour of another service provider and the conduct of government officials during the procurement processes.

The court held that the documents formed part of contractual documentation required under the relevant requests for proposal and were admissible for evidentiary purposes, including cross‑examination and proof of their contents.

Costs of the ruling were awarded to the plaintiffs on a partial indemnity basis.

During an ongoing civil trial, the plaintiffs sought leave to amend their statement of claim based on information obtained from documents recently disclosed by the defendant relating to an internal investigation into conflicts of interest in a government procurement process.

The proposed amendments alleged concealment of investigation results, revisions to internal reports, reprisals against the investigator, and motivations behind a subsequent retendering process.

The defendant opposed only the allegations concerning disciplinary threats against the investigator, arguing they were not relevant to the pleaded causes of action.

The court held that the amendments were prima facie meritorious and relevant to the plaintiffs’ theory that the defendant intended to conceal the investigation results and influenced the investigation process.

Finding no non-compensable prejudice under Rule 26 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, the court granted leave to amend the statement of claim.

The plaintiffs brought a motion to amend their statement of claim during the cross‑examination of a witness.

The court addressed the procedural steps required to fairly accommodate the amendments while the trial was ongoing.

The judge ordered that the plaintiffs complete the current cross‑examination, after which the defendant could file an amended statement of defence responding to the amendments.

Additional procedural directions were provided allowing the defendant to recall the witness, conduct examination in chief on new matters, and potentially call further witnesses addressing issues arising from the amendments.