Commercial Litigation and Dispute Resolution Blog

Guarantees are a very common form of security.  Lenders often ask for guarantees from the principals behind a business to whom they are going to extend credit.  Landlords will seek them from the principals of a corporate tenant.  Suppliers often make them part of a credit application.  Typically, guarantees are one of several documents signed as part of a new credit arrangement.  ...

Societies are generally groups of like-minded people who form a voluntary association for a particular purpose.  Societies can be are created for many reasons: a charitable purpose, fostering a sporting or cultural endeavour, or provide a framework for religious groups.  The Society Act creates the legal framework for the incorporation and organization of such groups.  ...

British Columbia has become the latest North American jurisdiction to give utility regulators – in this case the BC Utilities Commission –  the power to impose “administrative penalties”.  Administrative penalties are like fines, but are imposed directly by the regulator outside the court process.  The fines can range from $25,000 to $1,000,000 per day, depending ...

It is always a difficult situation when a loved one develops some form of dementia and gradually slips into incapacity.  It is even more troubling when well-meaning family members end up in a legal dispute over who should assume legal responsibility for the financial and personal care of the patient.  In recent years, Canadian legislatures have passed laws intended to make ...

What is an illegal contract and is it enforceable?  If an illegal contract is unenforceable, does the party who received its benefit get to keep that windfall?  The short answer to the first question is that a contract is illegal when it is either contrary to a statute or is contrary to public policy.  Generally, illegal contracts are not enforceable.  The answer to the second ...

On Monday October 29, 2012 the B.C. Property Assessment Appeal Board released an important decision reducing the assessed value for property tax of the upland land and improvements at the Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal to a nominal value. BC Ferries occupies the Province-owned property both under a long-term lease restricting the property use to ferry terminal, and under a ...

In general, corporate legislation in Canada provides that if a corporation engages in specific types of transactions, such as an arrangement or amalgamation, shareholders are entitled to vote against the transaction.  If the transaction is nevertheless approved, shareholders can then exercise a right to dissent and be paid fair value for their shares. 

Last month, I ...

The Supreme Court of Canada released its decision today in Southcott Estates Inc. v. Toronto Catholic District School Board, 2012 SCC 51 which addressed a number of thorny issues relevant to commercial real estate disputes including whether a Plaintiff must mitigate its damages where it has made a claim for specific performance of a real estate contract.  The decision has ...

On October 2, 2012, I blogged about court intervention in shareholder proxy contests in British Columbia.  One of the cases referenced was a petition brought by TELUS to quash a meeting of TELUS’s shareholders requisitioned by an American hedge fund, Mason Capital Management LLC (“Mason Capital”).  This meeting was requisitioned in an attempt to block a merger of ...

In June 2012, my colleague, Craig Ferris wrote about the B.C. Court of Appeal decision in 229 Burrard Residential Limited Partnership v. Essolat where the Court endorsed a strict application of the terms of the B.C. Real Estate Development Marketing Act (“REDMA”).  There, the Court set aside a pre-construction sales contract and ordered the return of the purchase ...