Thomas Conway

The Court-Appointed Receiver of Ashcroft Homes – Capital Hall Inc. sought approval of a settlement agreement with Northbridge Financial Corporation concerning an action for approximately $60 million in damages related to a fire that interrupted construction of a 353-unit residential condominium building in Ottawa.

The Receiver also sought a sealing order to protect the confidential terms of the settlement.

The court approved the settlement as reasonable and granted the sealing order, finding that the public interest in maximizing recovery for stakeholders and promoting settlement outweighed the principle of court openness under the three-part test established in Sherman Estate v. Donovan.

The plaintiffs brought an action for damages arising from catastrophic failures of emergency generators at a hospital.

Defendants SDMO and Kohler moved to stay proceedings, arguing lack of jurisdiction or that Ontario was not an appropriate forum.

The court found Ontario had jurisdiction simpliciter as the torts (property damage, failure to warn, negligent misrepresentation) occurred in the province.

The court also found the forum selection clause in the contract between SDMO and GAL Power was not properly before the court and would not apply to third parties or be enforceable against GAL Power.

Finally, the court determined Ontario was the most appropriate forum, considering the location of parties, witnesses, and evidence, and the existence of related proceedings.

The motion for a stay was dismissed.

This endorsement addresses costs following the dismissal of an urgent injunction application.

The court considered three hearings: the initial injunction application, a hearing regarding the respondent's breach of undertaking, and a hearing requested by the respondent to vary an interim order.

The injunction was dismissed due to the applicant's failure to provide an undertaking as to damages.

The court awarded costs to the respondent for the initial injunction hearing and for responding to the applicant's post-decision attempt to provide the undertaking, but denied costs for the hearings related to the undertaking breach and the failed attempt to vary the interim order, finding them unnecessary.

The court also assessed the reasonableness of the respondent's claimed legal hours and hourly rates.

The applicant, Cash Cloud Inc., sought an urgent interlocutory injunction to restrain the respondent, BitAccess Inc., from terminating a Master Purchase Agreement, deactivating cloud-based software used for cryptocurrency kiosks, and deleting customer data.

The court found it had jurisdiction to grant interim relief despite a mandatory arbitration clause.

The court granted a 60-day order preserving the customer data to allow the applicant to download it.

However, the court dismissed the injunction to restrain the software deactivation because the applicant failed to provide the mandatory undertaking as to damages required by Rule 40.03 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

This case conference endorsement addressed the assignment of the proceeding to active case management under Rule 77 and issues concerning examinations for discovery and costs.

The defendants sought to conduct examinations for discovery by videoconference due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the plaintiff's age and health.

The plaintiff preferred written interrogatories or delayed in-person examinations.

Citing *Arconti v. Smith*, the court ordered that examinations for discovery proceed by videoconference, finding that the benefits of proceeding outweighed the plaintiff's concerns and that further delay was unreasonable.

The court also ordered submissions on costs thrown away from previously cancelled discoveries.