Commercial Litigation and Dispute Resolution Blog

The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) recently changed the legal landscape on the media’s ability to contest production orders that implicate journalists’ sources.  

The facts in R v Vice Media Inc., 2018 SCC 53 (Vice Media) involve a savvy journalist, an unsympathetic source, and the SCC’s unanimous decision to uphold the production order. The court split 5-4 in its ...

In the recent Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta decisions of Weatherford Canada Partnership v. Addie, 2018 ABQB 571 and Remington v Crystal Creek Homes Inc, 2018 ABQB 644, the Court addressed how costs should be calculated following litigation. Although court costs are awarded at the end of court applications or trials and are almost always awarded in favour of the ...

Here’s a familiar scenario:  A service provider that has been invoicing its client for several years at some point discovers that it has been calculating its services incorrectly and has missed billing for an item. The mistake goes back a number of years. The service provider then sends a “corrective invoice” containing the previously missed charges to the client ...

In Rogers Communications Inc. v. Voltage Pictures, LLC (2018 SCC 38), a unanimous Supreme Court of Canada recently held that Rogers Communications Inc., an Internet service provider (“ISP”), was entitled to recover reasonable costs of complying with a Norwich order from Voltage Pictures LLC, the copyright owner. The Court remitted the matter to the motion court to ...

The June 20, 2018 Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta decision in Dow Chemical Canada ULC v. NOVA Chemicals Corporation, 2018 ABQB 482, caused headlines as a result of the more than $1.3 billion damages award.  The decision should also cause some reflection to operators on their duties to facility co-owners, even where the operating agreement excludes a fiduciary duty. 

Dow ...

A relatively recent decision from the BC Court of Appeal will shield defendants from potential exposure to special costs orders, even if they end up losing the litigation.  The decision creates an uneven playing field, where in certain types of litigation, successful defendants will recover special costs but successful plaintiffs will not.  Plaintiffs’ counsel will ...

Can a public owner contract out of any liability for a failure to follow its own directives, policies and, indeed, its own terms and conditions of a procurement process, including a duty of fairness? Although that issue was largely resolved in the Supreme Court of Canada case of Tercon Contractors Ltd. v. British Columbia (Transportation and Highways), 2010 SCC 4, a ...

The B.C. Court of Appeal recently weighed in, for the first time, on the interpretation and application of the strata wind-up provisions in Part 16 of the Strata Property Act, (the “Act”).  This is the first appellate decision to consider this aspect of the Act.  It is an important decision because the court confirmed the validity of the practice and procedures for strata ...

On Thursday, May 17^th, 2018, the International Commercial Arbitration Amendment Act received Royal Assent. The Act significantly modernizes British Columbia’s international arbitration legislation, the International Commercial Arbitration Act (“ICAA”), bringing the province in line with current international practices in the discipline. The most ...

The B.C. Supreme Court recently dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims in Northwest Organics, Limited Partnership v Roest, 2018 BCSC 866, a defamation action relating to a commercial composting facility. The claim arose after years of conflict between residents of a rural community who opposed construction of the facility and the facility’s owners. The residents had ...