Commercial Litigation and Dispute Resolution Blog

What options does one have when they discover that a term in a previously executed contract or written instrument was worded poorly, or incorrectly drafted? Generally, parties in this scenario may seek the remedy of rectification, which gives a court the equitable jurisdiction to rectify or correct the document so that it accords with the parties’ true agreement ...

For several decades in Canada, the court has applied the deferential standard of “reasonableness” when reviewing arbitral awards - subject to a narrow set of exceptions.

When applying the reasonableness standard, a reviewing court will show deference to the reasons of the decision-maker and uphold the award so long as the award falls within a “range of reasonable ...

The model Industry Agreements developed by the Canadian oil and gas industry (such as the CAODC-CAPP and PSAC contracts) stipulate that any unpaid contractor invoices shall bear interest at a rate of 18% per annum. This is by no means atypical. In the Canadian oil and gas industry it is very common to find contractual interest rates for late or unpaid invoices ranging from 12 ...

We are now several years into the “culture shift” encouraging summary dispositions rather than trials, following the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Hryniak v Mauldin.^[1] Commentary from the Alberta Court of Appeal suggests that this shift has indeed resulted in an increase in the number of cases that have been decided under the summary judgment rules in ...

On February 1, 2021, amendments to B.C.’s Environmental Management Act will come into effect that will introduce new reporting requirements in relation to lands that have been used for specified commercial or industrial uses (the Stage 13 Amendments). Owners or operators of those lands who seek protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) or the ...

This post discusses the Alberta Court of Appeal's recent decision in Hannam v. Medicine Hat School District No. 76,^[1] which stands as an emphatic reminder that the Supreme Court of Canada has directed courts to grant summary judgment when a fair and just determination can be made without a trial.

Although Hannam does not change the law of summary judgment, it conveys the ...

In King Day Holdings Ltd. v. The Owners, Strata Plan LMS3851^[1], the general rule that strata owners are “all in it together” gave way to fairness considerations and King Day Holdings Ltd. (“King Day”) reigned supreme in its claim that the strata council’s allocation of strata fees based on unit entitlement was significantly unfair.

Strata Plan LMS3851 consists ...

Two years ago, Grant Vogeli and I wrote a blog post discussing various approaches to calculating court costs in Alberta. In that post, we lamented that the Tariff of Recoverable Fees in Division 2 of Schedule C—the cost tariff which guides judges’ decisions on costs—had not been updated for over 20 years, leading increasingly to court cost awards that were only ...

For most people, the concept of insider trading likely conjures up thoughts of public companies and famous U.S. cases. For instance, Jeff Skilling, the CEO of Enron, being sentenced to 24 years in prison and fined $45 million for insider trading and other crimes relating to the Enron fraud. Or Martha Stewart getting tipped off by her broker and selling $230,000 of stock in ...

September 1, 2020 was a historic day for domestic arbitration in British Columbia for three reasons:

• The BC International Commercial Arbitration Centre changed its name and became the “Vancouver International Arbitration Centre” (referred to as “VanIAC”);
• The province’s new Arbitration Act (the “New Act”) came into force; and
• VanIAC’s updated ...