Business Beat

Effective January 22, 2024, private corporations governed by the Canada Business Corporations Act are required to publicly disclose their individuals with “significant control” (“ISCs”); however, the ISC identification rules remain murky in their application to shareholders that are trusts. Government guidance is urgently required to ensure corporations and shareholders can properly meet these new obligations.

With the May 31 deadline for filing a report less than a month away, Canada's Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act ("S-211") is now a "front burner" item for many Canadian businesses.

On December 7, 2023, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada released an article with nine principles intended to guide developers, providers and organizations to properly navigate the development and use of generative artificial intelligence. Privacy concerns arise where the AI is trained on data sets that include personal information.

Insurance can be a useful tool for someone preparing their estate plan. In this article, Jay Hershfield and Holly LeValliant discuss the unique advantages insurance has for business owners. They discuss how a business owner may use insurance to provide for the smooth transfer of their business, to equalize their estate, and to maximize the value of their estate.

This article summarizes the decision in Badesha v. Cronos Group, Inc., 2023 ONSC 5678, which considered when a court will take jurisdiction over claims of certain class member purchasers of securities on a foreign exchange.

This is a follow-up article to the one titled “Digital Signing of Documents for Business Lawyers”.  The purpose of that article was to help with considerations on the use of electronic, digital or remote signing. The purpose of this article is to provide tips on getting documents successfully signed digitally or electronically once the decision to use that method has been made.

A shareholders' Agreement is often overlooked by business owners. This shareholders' Agreement can assist the owners of the business entity to understand their rights, obligations, and expectations when it comes to their business dealings especially where there is conflict. It is important to assist clients to recognize why they require a shareholders' agreement where there is more than one shareholder in a business.

Your committee participation gives you a chance to play an important role in shaping and amplifying the impact of this dynamic practice area.

Questions we should be asking and considerations we need to keep in mind with respect to digital signing of documents for business lawyers.