Business Beat

We are pleased to share that through the Ontario Business Registry (OBR), the Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement has made great strides to ensure there are a variety of convenient and secure service channel options available to Ontario businesses, Service Providers (1), and Intermediary Organizations (2). This notice is to inform you about our expanding service delivery options and the requirements of a Company Key to access the OBR system.

Franchise Law is a trap for the unwary lawyer. The consequences of getting it wrong can be significant, not only to the public, the client, and to various individuals related to the client, but also for the lawyer. According to LawPRO’s most recent statistics the average dollar value of a negligence claim against lawyers in franchise matters was approximately five times the claim value in almost every other area of law.

In May, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) announced a set of initiatives it is testing to support early-stage capital raising for Ontario businesses. The initiatives include an extension of Ontario Instrument 45-507 Self-Certified Investor Prospectus Exemption (Interim Class Order), which permits Ontario investors who may not meet the accredited investor financial criteria, but have qualifying education or work experience, to invest in private Ontario businesses.

Business owners can now access significant tax benefits when selling a qualifying business to an employee ownership trust pursuant to a transaction that constitutes a qualifying business transfer. Among other benefits, eligible vendors are entitled to receive a shared pool of up to $10 million in capital gains deductions. This article will provide an overview of the eligibility requirements and an outline of the various benefits of EOT Transactions.

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.