Sheila R. Block

The appellants, Fram and Kerbel, appealed a trial judgment that declared a 2005 land sale agreement between Kerbel and Romandale at an end.

The trial judge had found that Kerbel repudiated the agreement by entering into a settlement agreement with Fram that delayed the closing of the land sale until after secondary plan approval.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeals, finding that Romandale was estopped by convention from asserting that the settlement agreement breached the 2005 agreement, as all parties had shared the assumption that the sale could only close after secondary plan approval.

The Court also held that the 2005 agreement was not frustrated or void for mistake, Kerbel's claim was not limitation-barred, and Kerbel was entitled to specific performance because the lands were unique.

The appellants, Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation and Ontario, appealed an arbitration decision that found they breached the Gaming Revenue Sharing and Financial Agreement (GRSFA) by ceasing to share certain non-gaming and complimentary revenues with the respondent, Ontario First Nations (2008) Limited Partnership.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the appeal, holding that the standard of review for commercial arbitrations remains reasonableness post-Vavilov.

The court found the arbitration panel's contractual interpretation was reasonable, firmly rooted in the agreement's text and surrounding circumstances, and that the honour of the Crown doctrine was correctly applied to the government-to-government agreement.

Following a motion for directions where the court ordered that the corporate respondent not pay the personal respondents' legal fees for their appeal of a winding-up order, the court determined costs.

The applicant sought costs of $4,500 on a partial indemnity basis.

The respondents failed to provide written submissions.

The court awarded the requested $4,500 to the applicant, ordering that it be paid jointly and severally by the personal respondents, as their conduct in breaching a stay order necessitated the motion.

The plaintiffs, representing a class of Barbados participating policyholders, brought an action against Manulife following the transfer of their policies to Life of Barbados (LOB) in 1996 and Manulife's subsequent demutualization in 1999.

The plaintiffs claimed that Manulife owed them a duty of care and a fiduciary duty to protect their rights to participate in the demutualization.

The court found that while it was reasonably foreseeable that Manulife would demutualize, no duty of care or fiduciary duty was owed to the plaintiffs because their rights as policyholders were lawfully extinguished by the transfer agreement, which was approved by regulators in Barbados and Canada.

The action was dismissed.