Sajjad Nematollahi

The plaintiff, an investor in a mining company, brought a motion for leave to commence a secondary market misrepresentation claim under the Securities Act and a motion to certify a class action under the Class Proceedings Act.

The plaintiff alleged that the defendants failed to disclose material facts about the viability of a gold mine in their prospectuses, which were later revealed in a press release, causing a drop in share price.

The court dismissed both motions, finding that the plaintiff failed to provide expert geological evidence to explain the technical mining disclosures and establish that the alleged omissions were known or knowable at the time the prospectuses were issued.

Without such evidence, there was no reasonable possibility of success for the statutory claim and no basis in fact for the class action common issues.

The plaintiff, a shareholder of the corporate defendant, sought leave to commence a secondary market misrepresentation claim under the Securities Act following the collapse of a tailings storage facility at the defendant's mine.

The plaintiff alleged that the defendant knew or ought to have known of the facility's compromised structural stability and failed to disclose it.

The court dismissed the motion for leave, finding that the plaintiff failed to establish a public correction of the alleged misrepresentation.

The press release issued by the defendant merely stated that the facility had breached and the cause was unknown, which did not indicate that any previous disclosure was untrue or misleading.

Two competing consortiums of class counsel brought a carriage motion to determine who would represent the proposed class in a national class action against Marriott regarding a massive data breach.

The court evaluated the standard carriage factors, finding most to be neutral.

The determinative factor was the interrelationship of class actions in multiple jurisdictions.

The court favoured the Winder Action because its counsel did not concede the necessity of overlapping regional class actions and was prepared to use multi-jurisdictional protocols to resolve the overlapping claims, whereas the Kogut Action consortium planned to run multiple overlapping actions across Canada.

Carriage was granted to the Winder Action and the competing actions were stayed.

Following dismissal of a securities class action leave motion under s. 138.8 of the Securities Act, the successful defendant sought substantial partial indemnity costs.

The plaintiff argued that the case raised a novel legal issue and that no costs should be awarded under s. 31(1) of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992.

The court rejected this characterization, finding the claim to be a conventional secondary market misrepresentation action and concluding that the leave motion lacked merit.

Applying the Civil Rules Committee Grid rates and reducing certain disbursements, the court fixed costs at $170,000 all-inclusive payable by the plaintiff.

The plaintiff sought leave under Part XXIII.1 of the Securities Act to advance a secondary market misrepresentation claim against a lender to an insolvent issuer following the issuer's collapse.

Applying the Supreme Court's Theratechnologies screening standard, the court held that the plaintiff failed to provide both a plausible interpretation of the promoter provisions and sufficient evidence showing a reasonable possibility of success at trial.

The court found that conventional banking, financial advisory, underwriting, and lending activities, even if essential to the transaction, did not amount to taking the initiative in founding, organizing, or substantially reorganizing the issuer's business.

The court also found insufficient evidence that the defendant knowingly influenced the release of the impugned disclosure documents.

Leave was denied.