Ron Podolny

The plaintiffs brought a class action against mutual fund managers for allowing certain investors to engage in frequent short-term trading (market timing/time zone arbitrage), which allegedly diluted the returns of long-term unitholders.

The court found that the defendants owed a duty of care to the funds and breached the standard of care by failing to prevent, and actively facilitating, frequent short-term trading contrary to their prospectuses.

However, the court dismissed the claim for breach of fiduciary duty, finding no bad faith or dishonesty.

The matter was directed to proceed to a damages trial.

The plaintiffs brought a motion to approve a $125 million settlement in a class action against a major bank for secondary market misrepresentation related to subprime mortgage investments.

The plaintiffs also sought approval of class counsel fees of $37.5 million, representing a 30% contingency fee.

The court found the settlement to be fair and reasonable, noting the significant litigation risks the plaintiffs faced, including a due diligence defence and challenges to damages calculations.

The court also approved the requested counsel fees, emphasizing the substantial risk undertaken by class counsel over 14 years of litigation and the excellent result achieved for the class.

In a proposed class action arising from a data breach of Marriott's hotel reservation database, the parties stated a question of law under Rule 21(1)(a) as to whether the plaintiff pleaded a legally viable cause of action for intrusion on seclusion.

The plaintiff argued that Marriott, by allegedly obtaining data under false pretenses and failing to protect it, was a 'constructive intruder'.

The court rejected this argument, following binding precedent that the tort of intrusion on seclusion applies only to actual intruders, not to defendants who fail to prevent a third-party hack.

The court concluded the Statement of Claim did not disclose a cause of action for intrusion on seclusion against Marriott.

The defendants brought motions across five Canadian jurisdictions to address overlapping multijurisdictional class actions regarding a data breach.

The parties reached a settlement to proceed only with the Ontario national class action and stay the actions in British Columbia, Alberta, Québec, and Nova Scotia.

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice approved the consent order dismissing the stay motion in Ontario, allowing the action to proceed subject to bi-annual reporting requirements to the case management judges in the other jurisdictions.