David Stevens

This was a costs endorsement following motions arising from a dispute over the sale of a joint venture and a related arbitration.

The plaintiff had sought summary judgment for more than $30 million, while the defendants brought a Rule 21 motion alleging res judicata and abuse of process and alternatively seeking a stay in favour of arbitration.

After the court rejected the res judicata and abuse of process arguments but granted a stay pending arbitration, both sides sought costs.

Applying the Rule 57.01 factors and considering the divided success, the complexity of the proceedings, and the unreasonably high amount claimed, the court made no order as to costs.

Following the sale and dissolution of a mass spectrometry joint venture, the plaintiff sued for approximately half of alleged profits arising from deferred service contracts transferred to a third party.

The defendants argued the claim was barred by the prior arbitration concerning a separate inventory issue, or alternatively had to proceed to arbitration under a dispute resolution agreement governed by foreign law.

The court held that neither issue estoppel nor cause of action estoppel applied because the deferred service contract issue was expressly kept out of the earlier arbitration.

Applying the competence-competence principle, and in light of conflicting expert evidence on U.S. and New York law, the court found it was at least arguable that the dispute fell within the arbitration clause and stayed the action pending arbitration.

The appellant was the original tenant of commercial leases which it assigned to a subsidiary.

The assignee later became insolvent and repudiated the leases under s. 65.2 of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.

The landlords sued the appellant for outstanding rent under the assignment clause.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that the repudiation of a lease by an insolvent assignee under s. 65.2 benefits only the insolvent and does not relieve the original tenant or assignor of its contractual obligations to the landlord.